RDA as goodguys
by OKH Halder
Summary: This is my take on the humans portrayed as villains in the movie Avatar. I do not think it reflects what James Cameron thinks, It does not deviate from the plot of the film but tells the parts of the story that James Cameron did not want told.
1. Chapter 1

_Well like at the very least 100 million people I saw Avatar and it captured my imagination certainly, and it was a better movie than either Star Wars episodes I,II, or III. I however am not a mindless liberal and did not support the Na'vi. But politics is not the reason I'm here, there is a story to be told here, and it is about the Humans, specifically Colonel Quaritch, who along with Colonel Mathieu from_ The Battle of Algiers_ and the Soviet Colonel in _Red Dawn_ is going to go down in immortality on the list of cool Colonels in movies._

Pumping Iron. Much as he beat his chest over it, Quaritch was too smart to actually enjoy this activity. He recognised it as a necessity, and especially on Pandora, it had to be done to keep at the peak of readiness in order to survive. He hated it because, he knew that was happening was he was making tears in his muscles and hoping he would not injure himself too badly, and on Pandora the temptation to go too far, to make yourself stronger was a strong urge indeed. But if you injured yourself it would make you weak.

_Seventy_ his brain said, and eagerly he got rid of the weights, and took a short breather. He would now go for his morning run, it was seven A.M., he would run his forty minute five mile fun run, and then shower and go in for a good breakfast. Much as people complained, the company he worked for the Resources Development Agency on Earth did wonders at making food substitutes taste good. The scientists did wonders with the Seaweed and Algae they grew to make things have the same texture and taste as the food they were trying to imitate. All farm space was reserved for planting food, and not cattle, there were no more cattle for slaughter. Everything they made was of plant origin, except for some things, such as eggs.

He got up, and grabbed an exopack, and walked towards an airlock, dressed in the t-shirt and combat trousers he wore for exercise. As he neared the airlock door he put on his exopack and set the oxygen intake to high, in order to help him make the run as short as possible. He genuinely enjoyed running but he liked to keep it quick, as the job as chief of security was a busy one. He opened the airlock and ran out.

After about a mile he noticed someone else jogging, going slower than he was, he decided he would allow himself the luxury of a few minutes delay to perhaps speak with this person, as it got very lonely running alone all the time. As he caught up he saw a familiar face, but at first was not willing to believe who it was. He saw the panting figure of administrator Parker Selfridge, running. This was surprising to the Colonel as he had never seen the weedy administrator, whom he had assumed was just a soft civilian, not disagreeable, but soft, doing any physical activity. The administrator looked at him through his exopack, and said in a slightly embarrassed and breathless voice "Oh, hello Colonel."

"Hello sir, I've never seen you around here before, or running for that matter" Quaritch said agreeably.

The administrator seemed embarrassed by the fact that he had been discovered taking care of his shape. "Um, yeah...I try and..." he was gasping for breath in between speaking "...avoid being seen by anybody, as they'll probably tease me for even trying and that would make me stop."

Quaritch noticed his boss was running in a funny way "Problem sir?"

"What? Oh...stitch?" he said in grim determination as he kept running.

"Ain't you gonna stop sir?" Quaritch asked.

"Nope, about one thing...I agree with you... you can't afford to get soft here...not even the top boss...this world does not respect our hierarchies. I'd do it...if I had more time...but I don't. Anyway...feels like there is a breeze blowing against you here..." he said.

"Well I don't find it too bad" said Quaritch.

"Yeah well that is because you...'re a machine Colonel...I'm human" Selfridge wheezed.

Quaritch chuckled at the joke, "Well you don't worry about what others say, it's real good that you're doing this sir, keeping in shape, you keep at it. How far do ya go?"

"Thanks Colonel, twice round the base" he wheezed.

"Well keep at it, I gotta go, see ya later sir." Quaritch ran off with Selfridge starting to say something, but for need of conserving breath decided against it. Quaritch was glad when he went back through the airlock and to his quarters for a shower. It was May 19th 2154.

"You are not in Kansas anymore, you are on Pandora ladies and gentlemen, respect that fact, every second of every day." He said this as seriously as he could with a no joke look on his face. Even his fist was clenched, so serious was this matter to him, he wanted people to know that what he said was to be taken more seriously than usual, and he hoped they would all listen, as if they did not, they would be lucky to even get a funeral. He pointed through the windows to the fence where he saw a Scorpion on patrol "Out there beyond that fence, every living thing that flies, crawls, or squats in mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes." That was just a bit of grim levity, so they how serious things were, but also so they knew he was a human being and not just a function. He saw in the back a man in a wheelchair hurrying along, he had his hair high and tight, was young, and looked at Quaritch, and Quaritch looked back. Normally he'd tear someone's ass off for being late to a safety brief, but this was obviously someone who'd been in some nasty stuff. "We have an indigenous population of humanoids, called the Na'vi. They're fond of arrows dipped in a neurotoxin that'll stop your heart dead in two minutes, and they have bones reinforced with a naturally occurring carbon fibre, they are very hard to kill." One of the science pukes, you could tell them from a mile away, glared at this, another oversensitive liberal who seemed to ignore the fact that it had been the natives who had fired first, yet somehow it was intolerable that humanity should reciprocate this act of aggression. "As head of security it is my job to keep you alive. I will not succeed. Not with all of you. If you wish to survive, you need to cultivate a strong mental attitude. You have got to obey the rules, Pandora rules, ladies and gentlemen." He hoped they were paying attention, the science puke, who did not look like a physically soft civilian, was glaring at him, thinking that you could somehow reason with nature, not realizing that perhaps nature could not be reasoned with. Quaritch hoped he was either dead, or had a near death experience within a week that would put an end to his romantic vision. "Rule number one, carry an exopack at all times, you already know about the toxic atmosphere of this planet." The new soldiers, even the paraplegic were all noting this down mentally, as were the new miners, the scientists obviously just thought of him as another dumb grunt. "Rule number two, even if you are not military keep a firearm with you at all times, with spare ammunition. We are in demand here as a source of protein for many carnivorous animals, do not hesitate to shoot." That was meant for the scientists. "Rule number three, keep a safe distance from plants, some actually want to eat you, if you wish to know which specific ones are dangerous, ask the scientists for a list and memorize it." He wanted to add, if they will give it to you. They think it would be wrong to get rid of all carnivorous plants are we would be damaging the environment. "Rule number four, if you see a Na'vi, you will probably live, as if they are seen, they want to be seen. If you don't see them, pray the arrow misses, look for them and take 'em out, violence is the only language they understand." He looked back know at the science puke, he had light brown hair and a goatee "We tried being peaceful but they still killed us, so we have to remind 'em that we are not to be trifled with." The science puke, looked at him with a cold stare that told him he did not believe him. "Rule number five, to all civilians out there, listen to the soldiers. Almost all these guys in this room, and all the ones who are already here have combat experience. If they tell you to duck, you hit the dirt. If they tell you to jump, you should only ask how high." He looked again at the science puke "We are here first and foremost to protect you, all we ask for in return is a bit of respect and trust." Now it was the last rule. "The last rule for all soldiers, listen to the veterans, take what they say as gospel, as crazy as it may sound it will be true, so even if you outrank 'em, even if you were goddamned SAS, and they were in an unfavoured unit in the goddamned Chinese Army, they know more about this place than you, listen to them. If you were Special Forces you should learn fast, those of you who suffer from the hubris of those units, will die faster than an untrained miner. If you have any questions, ask any of the officers here, if not find your work boss, and get work details from him, and do exactly as they say. I must go now."

He walked off, coming to the paraplegic "Hey there, welcome to Pandora" he said respectfully.

The younger man smiled back "Hello sir." Quaritch made a mental note to check that kid out.


	2. Chapter 2

_Well here is part 2, if anybody is reading._

Colonel Miles Quaritch proceeded to his office, and prepared for another day, not knowing what it could bring. He first checked his message box on his computer. The report from Lieutenant Colonel Simmons, his deputy, an ex-Army man, showed that in the last week, 20,000 small arms rounds had been expended, twenty missiles fired, and an AMP suit damaged. It asked him to forward this request to the manufacturing department. Quaritch copied the request but added changed the request for the production of 100,000 rounds, two hundred missiles, as well as three times as many spare parts as were needed, and the production of two AMP rifles, as those tended to get broken frequently. Major Darwin, an ex-Royal Marine liked to scoffingly say that Americans expended too much ammunition, and things would go a lot more smoothly on Pandora, if the British were in charge. This haughtiness and contempt for America Quaritch suspected was a prideful front to cover up for the insecurities he felt about his own country's provision for its armed forces. For Quaritch ammunition, and even vehicles were cheap, men's lives were infinitely dear. He wanted his men of course to be disciplined and accurate, but he never wanted them to worry about running out of ammunition, or thinking their machines were more valuable than their lives.

Selfridge had originally complained about the expense, but since Quaritch did a better job than Colonel Peng (the previous head of security, an ex-PLA colonel) of keeping personnel alive, he stopped complaining, since in the long run it saved costs, and with the survival rate going up, more people volunteered to come to Pandora, and expand the Company's operations. However relations with she who could not be named had only worsened as Quaritch had argued against trying to negotiate with the natives as, despite the scientists doing their hippie routine with the natives, they still killed his men.

"What do you think we should do Colonel?" The administrator had asked him four years ago.

"Well sir, I think we should shut down her school. When the scientists moved in, I gave my men orders not to engage the indigenous unless engaged, and to engage only in conversation. But no, the natives still attacked us sir, and still are, and I do not see how my men are in the wrong of they respond to hostile action. I recommend that we shut down the school so we can send the Na'vi a message. It should be one of, we will play ball if you will, but if you will not talk then we won't still be feed if you if you want to keep biting that hand."

The administrator had not thought long "I think you are right Colonel, their actions threaten our operations by threatening the lives of our people. I'll order Augustine back but she ain't gonna like it."

"I don't expect she will, but I could not give a damn what that bitch thinks" Quaritch had said viciously.

Selfridge had sat up "Whoa, why the language Colonel. Heck you two seemed to hate each other before you even met."

Quaritch had been mildly surprised that Selfridge had in any way defended she who could not be named "I know her type sir."

After doing that Quaritch looked at the casualty report, six wounded, none seriously, most just had been attacked by acid plants, the five soldiers all had bad rashes that prevented from doing field duty as they would be more focused on the rashes than on their surroundings. Only one had been attacked by a viperwolf and she had a scar across her back now, but she was alive. So last week had been a good week. He hoped all weeks would go as smoothly as all the soldiers in that report would be fit for duty in three days. He also checked the progress reports, and what his men had killed. They had killed a Thanator, thirty wiperwolves, and seven Na'vi, as well as lots of hostile plants. So a good week and the mining operation was on schedule. It was now 10:50 a.m. time to check out that paraplegic, who he had been told by Lt. Col Simmons was an Avatar driver, replacing his deceased twin brother, and that his last name was Sully.

The guy was only twenty four, three years in the Marine corps, after only one year he was specialist, and that was just before he was deployed to Venezuela, where there was still green, but right wing rebels. Sully, who Quaritch was pleased to see, had been in 1st reconnaissance battalion like himself, and had won the distinguished service cross for in one firefight, charging the enemy and killing fifteen of them and saving alot of lives while doing so. "Goddamn kid, you were a great soldier, what the hell happened?" asked Quaritch. For that action Sully had been promoted to Corporal. Six months after that though, in a firefight, a bullet had severed the bottom of his spine, ending a career that had great potential. "Now that is a damned shame."

However inspite of his youth Sully was a veteran, and Quaritch even though he had much more experience could identify with him. He was the one person he could see in the entire Avatar team roster who he could talk to. He wondered how she who could not be named had treated the poor kid. He was betting she had been rude, even though he was a wheelchair bound veteran who had lost a lot. That was how she operated, piously attacking the military for being excessively brutal on all fronts. Well what did he care, she was the sort of hypocrite, he knew that. Best not to think about it though. Well he had found someone who he could talk to and, since she was about to re-establish contact with the natives Sully would be going with her, and he, being someone, Quaritch imagined, of a similar mind frame to himself could provide him good intelligence on the hostiles, which he and Captain Hamby (an ex Army intelligence guy) could use against the Na'vi.

Quaritch knew that as much as she who could not be named wished it, the Na'vi would not negotiate, not just because they apparently wanted nothing the humans had, but because Quaritch suspected these savages had not learned to be tolerant of other cultures like the humans had, and were all downright racist towards all humans, and regarded humans as inferior. With that sort of hubris they would not negotiate. It was going to turn into a shit fight. But as Quaritch knew first hand from his first day, the blue monkeys were tough. Even though he had killed two of the bastards in hand to hand combat, they were damned tough, and he wanted to be holding all the good cards when the game started.

Quaritch saw that Sully had no family left, his parents were dead of cancer, his brother was dead which was why he was here, and his sister had been a fighter pilot in the Air Force, but she had lost her life in a flying accident. Quaritch snorted "So chair force actually lost somebody?" Well if Sully got all the intel Quaritch needed, or the best that he could possibly provide, he would make sure that Sully got his legs back when he went home. With his excellent record, and the fact that his policies had increased profit by 40%, Quaritch had a lot of pull in asking for favours of the company, so a Sully would walk again. Quaritch had a feeling that Sully would not let him down. He bent over to his desk intercom and keyed in the number for his assistant Lieutenant Semyonov, a young man who had joined the company rather than the Russian Army because the pay was better, and the comrades less brutal. He also was something of a surrogate son for Quaritch. "Hey Andrei, tell Chacon when she is showing Sully around to come and see me in the weights room, I wanna talk to him."

"Jake Sully the paraplegic Avatar driver sir?" asked the tinny voice.

"Yup, make sure you communicate that immediately, it is crucial to Security Operations, understood?"

"Understood sir, I will do that now. Signing off." Quaritch keyed off and continued on with his work, hoping no crises would arise during the day.


	3. Chapter 3

_Well here is part 3, hippies beware, or at least do what you demand of others and keep an open mind_

Just before setting off for his afternoon training routine, Colonel Miles Quaritch went outside his office, to the cubicle of his assistant Lieutenant Andrei Semyonov. Semyonov looked like a distance from a distance like a scary Russian. As one got closer one found out this was not the case. He was square jawed, had light brown hair, and pale skin. However he was short, was fit but not muscular, wore glasses, and there was something definitely Mongolian in his face. He looked more like what the Soviet Union had liked to portray as an example of diversity.

Andrei looked up when he saw Quaritch approaching him and said very formally "Hello sir" then immediately went back to his work.

"Hello Andrei, how's work coming along?" asked Quaritch.

"Well sir, I'm glad you have faith in me, but even though Russia has abandoned Cyrillic, it is still hard understanding everything as I still think mostly in Russian." He immediately consulted the meaning of a word in a heavy Russian-English dictionary on his desk. On his desk was also an English grammar book, and for Regular fiction reading he was reading _Yevgeny Onegin_, yes Andrei Semyonov was definitely Russian, but he did not quite fit at home Quaritch suspected, which was why he was here. Very few of the soldiers were here because they just wanted to see a new world. Most were here for different reasons. She who could not be named would have laughed if someone told her they were here for humane reasons, Quaritch himself included.

"I'm sure you'll do just fine, that's why I send you all the simple stuff, and I know you work hard Andrei" said Quaritch "But you seem troubled, do you wish to talk?"

Andrei looked up, and definitely looked like he wanted to talk to someone. He was alone, and not well liked. Quaritch knew this from eavesdropping on a conversation between the enlisted men Wainfleet and Fike, both former Rangers and good friends.

"Hey man, what's got you so depressed?" asked Fike to his friend.

"Ah man, it's temporary, it's just Chacon" the other man, who much to the atheist annoyance of Quaritch always wore a cross.

"Yeah, what about Trudy Chacon Lyle?"

"Well, its just that, well, she is pretty" Wainfleet said pathetically. Considering the fact that he was physically intimidating and a Ranger, Quaritch found it amusing to witness a hard man reduced to impotence by a woman.

"Yeah man, what about it?" asked Fike.

"Um, well, I, I, um, kinda wish I could ask her out on a date, I like her" Wainfleet said in an embarrassed voice.

Fike chuckled "I don't think you're alone Lyle, she's quite athletic and sassy, I can see why, but don't waste your time over it, she is way out of your league, way out a my league, and I'd say I'm a damned sight prettier than you."

Wainfleet had smiled bitterly "Yeah I know, there ain't no point, but I worry about dyin' alone sometimes."

"Oh we all get the same way sometimes, everyone of us, except the Colonel."

"Yeah except the Colonel." They probably would have stopped if they had realized that Quaritch was just around the corner.

"Say" said Fike, "Who do you think Chacon would be interested in?" he seemed to be asking all the questions.

"My bets are on that nerdy Russian, that's the sort of guy those women seem to go for. Damn him."

"I don't like the little you know what either Lyle, he always seems to be judging you, and waiting for you to make a mistake" said Fike.

"Yup Sean, I agree, I don't like him either, if I had a chance I'd try and make him piss himself without laying a finger on him. Ah well, if the Colonel sees somethin' in 'im he must be good at something, maybe he's real good at pushing papers."

So Quaritch knew, and Semyonov probably knew that he was not liked, and Quaritch never saw him talking him to anybody, except a few scientists, and even then it was clear that the scientists barely tolerated him. For some reason to them, only Na'vi was a useful language, other human ones were not. Anyone who put their nose in a book that was not about Science or Pandora must also be dangerous as they were thinking of humanity first, dangerous in their books, especially with she who could not be named.

"Well sir, I was wondering if I could, well actually get to go out there for once, see what it is like, just once" Semyonov said earnestly.

Quaritch smiled grimly "Son, you do not wanna know what its like, its nothing like shooting at the tinpot enemies our countries armed forces fight back on Earth, here everything, and I mean everything wants to kill you. I do not want to fish your dogs tags from viperwolf dung, because you wanted to see what's beyond the fence. Ain't it dangerous enough, that we fall ill easily from foreign diseases, and the very air can kill us?"

"Well, I just wanted to prove I could actually be a soldier, that is why I became a company officer sir" he said nervously.

Quaritch sighed "Well things could turn messy soon, and you will regret asking me to see some action 'cause yur gonna plenty of it son. I gotta go and train, see ya later."

"Yes sir" Semyonov said to Quartich's back. Quaritch put his hand up to indicate he'd heard and walked off to the weights room, so he could train, and to meet Jake Sully there, and try and get him onside.

Quaritch was almost done with his exercises when he heard a youthful voice say "You wanted to see me Colonel?"

It was his penultimate lift _nineteen_ his brain said "This low gravity 'll make you soft." He went up for his final one "You get soft" he gratefully put the weight back on the rack and sat up, "Pandora will push you out dead, with zero warning." He now had a chance to look at Sully again. He was young, and despite his situation optimistic. Even though they were slightly smarmy, the company suits were not lying when they said you get a fresh start on Pandora. Evidently Sully had that hope, Quaritch knew however it was because of the Avatar program. When he was an Avatar, he could use his legs again, and was less inhibited than in his human body, which was a shame. Quaritch would have arranged for Sully to get his legs back if he had simply been a paralyzed intelligence geek, and did his job well. For being stuck out in this hellhole, the company needed to give more than a excellent pay check to people like Sully. Yet since the Avatar program offered a more free reality, than Sully's true paralyzed existence, it was even more necessary to dangle the Carrot out in front, but he would do that after giving him the presentation. Best to see if Sully was the sort who would do it, with or without the reward, from a sense of duty, that was what was needed. He needed a smart, good soldier inside the hostile camp telling him things that would help him save lives when the inevitable happened.

"I pulled your record Corporal; Venezuela, that was some nasty bush. Nothing like this here though. You got alot of heart kid, showin' up in this neighbourhood" said Quaritch respectfully. Were it not for his injury, Quaritch could tell from Sully's focused expression he would have been a valuable member of the team. He was focused, trying to memorize every word of Quaritch's so he would not have complications in remembering his objective, someone who was mission orientated. He stood up and motioned for Sully to follow him across the hangar bay to his personal AMP suit. "I was first recon myself you know? A few years ahead of you" he conceded "well maybe more than a few" he admitted with a chuckle. He was old enough to be Sully's father. _Papa_. He shook the word out of his head, he needed to stay focused or he and others would die. "I did three tours in Nigeria, not a scratch." Quaritch felt that if Sully was to trust him, he should reveal how he got the scars, he told the story only to a few people, as he found it embarrassing. "I come out here" he pointed at his scars, and turned to face Sully "Day one. Think I felt like a shave tail Louis?" he said in an embarrassed tone. For the then Lieutenant Colonel Quaritch, who had arrived twelve years ago it was embarrassing. He had killed more African insurgents than he like to think about, watched good men die or be wounded, and he alone surviving. He felt invulnerable, invincible.

But that was a tale for another time, Sully could ask later if he wanted, but Quaritch really wanted to get on with his training. "I could use a man like yourself Sully." He turned back to the AMP suit which the technicians had finished preparing. He began climbing into the cockpit, checking to make sure Sully took the elevator up so he could look at Quaritch at roughly eye level. "The Avatar program is a bad joke, a bunch of limpdick science majors just studying the natives, falling in love with 'em and hoping we die." He began strapping himself in "Clear!" he shouted so anyone behind his suit would literally not get burned. "A recon gyree in an Avatar body, hell that is a potent mix. It gives me the goosebumps, such a man could provide me with the intel I need, right in the hostiles camp."

Sully looked like he wanted to ask something so Quaritch let him speak "Am I still with Augustine?"

"Yeah, on paper, you quack like one of them science pukes, you walk like one, but you report to me." He said while getting his hands into the devices which made the machine respond to every move one made so the machine became an extension of your body. It was Quaritch's kind of Avatar, powerful and without the possibility of getting lost in the fantasy. He rested his hand on the sides of the cockpit and looked to his left at Sully "Look Sully I want you to learn these savages, I want you to gain their trust. I need to learn how to force their cooperation or hammer 'em hard if they won't. Can you do that for me son?" he asked.

With a you bet look in his eyes Sully said "Yes sir."

Quaritch thumbed on the sensor device, and the machine became one with him. He punched forward slightly with both fists, to make sure that was working, and then walked forward, and turned to face Sully, both the machine's hands resting on its hips. The marine looked up at him with respect, the respect a son might have for a father. _Papa_. No he had to stay concentrated. "Son, I look after my own. You see to it that you get what I need and I'll see to it that you get your legs back when you rotate home." His gestured with his right hand to Sully's useless limbs and the machine did likewise, "Your real legs, how d'ya like that?"

Sully smiled contentedly "That sounds real good sir."

Quaritch smiled back, and then closed the cockpit of the machine and walked off to the AMP training grounds. He could tell that he and Sully would get along famously, the kid wanted the reality instead of the fantasy.


	4. Chapter 4

_Part 4, this will go on for some while as a series and I hope I have faithful readers, you won't be disappointed. _

The message from Andrei Semyonov, the day following his personal briefing of Sully, and the day when Sully first ventured out into Pandora proper along with she who could not be named searching for the Na'vi, was alarming.

"Sir!" said Andrei urgently, and he very rarely interrupted so suddenly into the Colonel's work habit.

On his desk Quaritch pressed a button to open communication with the young Russian. "Yes what is it?" knowing he would not like it.

"Sir, I've heard on the grapevine that Jake Sully, our man, is lost in the jungle and the science chopper is returning home" he said, with the apprehension of a man who knows he could be burned for telling the truth.

Quaritch almost laughed as he edited himself by shouting "Expletive!"

He heard a stifled snort of laughter from the other end. "Sorry sir, but no, they are coming back without Jake."

"Damn, Damn, Damn, Damn, Damn!" said Quaritch. He now regretted his word on no night operations, and Sully was valuable, but it was only Avatar body, not the real deal. So Quaritch was not going to spend lives to recover something fake. However he knew that the drivers of the Avatars were in tune with their Avatar's nervous system. Quaritch was not sure what would happen if that Avatar body were killed by say, being eaten alive, as might happen.

Nothing for it, but to go down there and brave she who could not be named, and ask what could happen to Sully. It was important as it would be difficult to make a new Avatar and get the intel, but it would also be a stupid way to go. It would be like dying because you died in a video game. He keyed in "Andrei, come with me, and be armed scientists are infinitely more deadly than Pandora." He keyed off and checked himself in the mirror to make sure he looked as un-thuggish as possible. He straightened himself and walked outside his office door, to see Andrei standing there waiting and watching. Quaritch nodded and the two men walked off in silence to the Avatar room.

They walked through the Hell's Gate complex following the signs, until they were in the outer laboratories, everyone ignoring them or giving them hostile glances. As they approached the Avatar room Quaritch saw the science puke from the day before yesterday, Augustine, and an Indian looking fellow, bending over and observing the functions of someone, probably Jake.

The thud of boots against a metal grating caused the three to look their way, and Augustine glared at Quaritch. He returned the look, she had no right to dislike him, not after what she had done. He walked over to them and looking at the Indian fellow, who seemed to be the most neutral of them all, and asked "How's Sully?"

"What in the hell are you doing down here?" demanded Augustine angrily.

Quaritch ignored her and looked at the Indian fellow patiently "I asked you a question, how is he?"

"Um, well, he's alive..." he said

"Don't answer him Max. He has no business sticking his nose in my department!" she said irritably. The science puke glared at Quaritch like the good little poodle he was. Andrei stood there expressionless.

"That is good Doctor, now do we have any idea where he is or what is happening to him?"

"Look just get out of here, you people cause enough trouble as it is" said Augustine.

Quaritch could see this was impossible, all the scientists were glaring at him, and the one person who was talking was neutral in as unfriendly a manner as possible. "I'm sorry I care about human lives more than I do for plants or blue savages." Everyone was overtly hostile to them now, looking at him as if they would murder, and even Quaritch would have felt threatened, if they had been brave enough, but they were all cowards. He turned to Andrei "Lets go. We'll come back when he is awake." Without a word Andrei followed him out. Quaritch felt empty and furious, nothing had been accomplished and Augustine was still acting as if she held the moral high ground as the great humanitarian. Quaritch knew better, he knew her.

He went back to his office, dismissing Andrei for the day and waited. He read a book on the French Revolution, and waited. After a while he realized how pointless this was as Augustine would never tell him when Jake was awake out of spite for him which he could not comprehend. It was she, who had committed a far more serious breach of what would be considered the right way of conduct. He checked the clock it was 2224 hours, past his bedtime, you needed plenty of energy on Pandora. Then he got a buzz at his desk, it was Sully. "Hey Colonel, I'm back."

Eagerly Quaritch keyed in "Hey Jake, are you alright?"

"I sure am Colonel, and like I said to Augustine you are not gonna believe where my Avatar is!"

Sully was excited so this must be real good news "Where?"

"I'm in the big tree with the local Na'vi tribe sir, they're gonna teach me how to be a warrior."

Quaritch felt like whooping for joy, what an intelligence windfall, what luck. He just hoped Sully did not reveal anything about their methods to the Na'vi. "Hot digedee damn son, that is just fantastic! However its late I'm sure you need rest, and I know I do. I'll see ya with the Administrator in the administrative tower at 0630 in the morning. You can tell me all about it then, I'm looking forward to it."

"As am I sir." Sully keyed off, and Quaritch could finally go to bed.

Sully told him, Administrator Selfridge, and the assembled officers about how he had walked aimlessly through the jungle, been attacked by a horde of the creatures which had given Quaritch his scars. He had killed two, but was about to be overwhelmed when a female Na'vi saved him. As Quaritch expected she was more concerned about the lives of nasty carnivores than the life of a fellow humanoid. She had been rude, and although Sully did not seem to know it, she had probably been stalking him and regretted not killing him. Killing a 'sky person' to the Na'vi was a great battle honor. Jake also described how he had had luminous seeds land on him, and at that the female Na'vi had become friendlier and led him towards the Hometree. He had then been ambushed by hostile Na'vi warriors and force marched back to the Hometree. There the tribal leaders had obviously wanted to kill Jake, but probably to gather intelligence themselves, did not kill him. What amused Quaritch most was how he had gotten out of dying.

"Yeah they became more curious when I said I was a warrior. I tried to put it in terms they would understand. So I said I was a Marine, a warrior for the Jarhead clan."

Quaritch laughed "Jarhead clan? And it worked?"

"Yes sir" Sully said proudly "Hey, I'm practically family now, they're gonna study me, and teach me their ways."

Proudly Quaritch clapped Sully on the back "That's called taking initiative son, I wish I had ten more like you."

Selfridge had found the story interesting but he did not want anyone getting sidetracked. His relief at what looked like a breakthrough in passively getting what the company wanted was a relief to him. "Look Sully, just found out what the blue monkeys want. I mean we've tried giving 'em medicine, education, roads, but no, they like mud. That would not bother me" he said walking over to the holographic console and ineptly fiddling with the controls "Its just that..." In frustration he tried to move the map ninety four kilometres west to the Hometree, but all he succeeded in doing was bringing up a 3D Hell's Gate. "Um could somebody help me please?" An officer took the controls and got into travel mode. "Sector 12" Selfridge said. "Alright go" the map moved in the right direction showing the progression of the company dozers "go...go...go" They were at Hometree. "Okay stop right there" he said to the Officer, but he overshot the big tree and then had to come back "Whoa, Jesus" said Selfridge out of temporary concern for this presentation becoming awkward. The officer knew what do and showed the underground survey "Their damn village just happens to be resting on the richest unobtainium deposit in a two hundred kilometre radius." The survey showed easily a half a million kilos of unobtanium under the tree. "I mean look at all that Cheddar!" Selfridge was glad that Sully seemed to understand now why everyone was making such a fuss. Selfridge chuckled with amused greed, at thinking how pleased everyone would be. The company would earn easily ten trillion dollars from this, and everyone would get a bonus, the board of directors, the shareholders, and everyone on this base. What was there not to like?

Sully however seemed to disapprove of this corporate greed, and Selfridge could understand, it was not appealing. He was also not going to say 'You know we give 5% to forest restoration and 5% to water purification' as he was afraid Sully would not believe him. "Look Sully" he said walking over to him, and trying to ape the humorous tone people could put on to sugar a pill, and make that task far less unpleasant. "It looks bad if we use force on the indigenous, but, if there is one thing shareholders hate more than bad press its a bad quarterly statement. I didn't make up the rules." In a way it was supposed to be funny and pleasant. For Selfridge and the assembled Officers it was, knowing just how hostile and savage the Na'vi were, but maybe Sully did not see it that way.

"Well who gets 'em to move?" asked Sully.

"Guess" said Quaritch rhetorically.

"How long do I have?" asked Sully

"Three months" said Quaritch "That's when the dozers get there."

"Look Sully find a carrot that is going to make these guys move, otherwise its gonna have to be all stick" he said indicating the Colonel.

"Well then we're wasting time" said Sully.

The Colonel had not been lying, this guy was focused on his mission. "I like this guy!" Selfridge announced proudly "With that attitude Sully I'll make sure you get the corporate approval to get the stem cells grown here, and have the operation here if you want." Selfridge could see that they were all going to get along just fine.


	5. Chapter 5

_Part 5, and if you want to send me hate mail at least assure me you have read this, and understand that you are a human and not some 10 foot tall blue man. _

"So Sully how'd it go?" asked Quaritch. He was with the ex-Marine in the administrator's office. Selfridge watched the two, he normally would have left it all to Quaritch but he had wanted something to break the exciting monotony on Pandora and have a low key, boring conversation. Not that this was boring, but rather a break, from the hectic pace of the planet which never seemed to rest.

"Oh they tried to teach me how to ride a direhorse. You know those things that come out of the hair of the Na'vi sir?"

"Yup" said Quaritch who himself was interested in what military value this piece of information might have.

"Well it turns out the natives use it to connect with the animals, and when they do they can command these things with their minds, and feel the creature and what it feels, they call it the bond."

"Well that is interesting son, as that gives an advantage as they know who far and hard they can drive their beasts, that is good to know" said Quaritch.

Selfridge saw the man wanted to ask something but seemed to be afraid to do it. Timidity was unusual in the Colonel, but Selfridge thought he knew the question "What was it like?"

Sully blushed "Well I don't know really how to describe it. I could feel what it was feeling, what it was thinking, how awake and tired it was, how heavy I was upon it. I knew just what I could do with it, and I got the feeling it had the same thing with me. It was, not of Earth."

"Were they nicer to you today?" asked Quaritch.

Sully snorted "The woman I met still hates me and laughs at me whenever I make a mistake and never hesitates to make a fool of me. The chief to be Tsu'tey still wants to prove how tough he is by slaying a sky person."

Both Selfridge and Sully noticed a change in Quaritch, from being pleasant and banal, to looking like he wanted to kill. Both his hands bunched into fists, and his body stiffened. He then noticed the other two men looking at him with worry, and reluctantly relaxed. "Son, let me tell you how I got these scars" he said pointing at the viperwolf scars on the right side of his head.

When he came to Pandora, he had received the talk from Colonel Peng, the same one he gave, though not as much emphasis on safety, and believed that this planet would be easy. He had been guided round by a former PLA sergeant from the 3rd Guards Rifle division, who was due to rotate home next week. He told Quaritch how rough it was, and that it was worse than anything on Earth, as everything was out to get them. He had not believed him, as from his arrogant Marine Recon point of view, what did a simple PLA sergeant know?

He had gone aboard a Samson to scout out an unobtainium deposit with the Sergeant, and two others. Twenty young Na'vi warriors, young and brash probably, trying to prove themselves had seen them. No better than gangsters really, by killing you prove yourself worthy of membership, not thinking about the life you are ending. Soldiers except a baptism of fire, as a rite of passage, you don't have to kill, just survive and do your best, if you have killed it's something you may talk about, but no one really is proud of it. They just hope the guy on the receiving end felt little pain.

Not the Na'vi. The first thing they knew of them was when the former Royal Marine Corporal with them was impaled by an arrow, and flew towards the jungle floor, and Quaritch as searched for the attackers, hating to think of what would happen to the Marine's corpse. He saw them flying on what looked like mini-blue dragons. The PLA sergeant was on a door gun and fired taking out three before another arrow was fired. The arrows came in again, all boucing off the metal hull. Quaritch emptied the clip in his assault rifle at the riders, and only managed to wound one of the Na'vi. The PLA sergeant meanwhile with dead aim had killed another two.

The pilot of the Samson had banked left and fired his chain guns at the Na'vi only bringing down one, as the surviving fourteen broke formation to attack the helicopter from either side. This time Quaritch fired in controlled bursts, killing two before anyone else in the helicopter had opened fire. The other door gunner, Quaritch never learned what he had been, except that he was Swedish took out another four in a flurry of shooting, but this deadliness was the cause of his downfall as an arrow impaled him. Then the helicopter began rocking and the man's dead body tumbled to the ground. "God damn it!" said the pilot "The goddamned banshees are rocking the damned chopper!" Quaritch was awed by their strength, but these things had made it clear they were determined to kill them. He shouldered his rifle, grabbed his pistol in one hand, and then grabbed onto a handle bar in the chopper. He could see the flapping wings of the banshees but he could not get a clear shot. So he swung his body out of the chopper and emptied the 20 round clip at two of the natives, killing them. That was the first time he knew for certain he had killed a female warrior. He saw her face, she was the first one he shot. There was such hatred, such malice, an utter lack of love and respect for the enemy. Killing for the thrill of the kill. For this he hated them even more.

He swung back inside the chopper to reload. He counted only six left but they were all over the chopper, and the pilot was begging for help. The last man in the chopper was manning the door gun. It was up to Quaritch to save the day. He reloaded, and leaned out again but then the bastards succeeded. He saw one of them throw their bow into the rotor. He shot the blue devil through the forehead as he saw him do it, but it was too late. It fouled up the rotor, and stalled it, causing alarms to go off in the chopper. Quaritch had to swing back in to avoid an early death by falling "Hells' Gate" he heard the pilot say "This is Alpha 20 going down, Alpha 20 going down." As the helicopter spun the pilot saw their tormentors and with the fury of dying animal fired off all his heat seeking missiles. Quaritch heard explosions and knew all their attackers were dead, but as the forest floor came closer he had a sinking feeling they were all dead too.

As it turned out, none of them died, or was seriously injured in the crash. He awoke to find himself ten meters from the wreck. The pilot was shaking him awake, "Colonel!" he barked, trying to get him to come round. Quaritch saw that night time was approaching.

Remembering where they were Quaritch sprang to his feet and said to the pilot "Lieutenant Colonel, Lieutenant" he said testily "I have not earned that rank yet."

"I do not think you shall live to see another promotion sir" said the PLA sergeant who sat down on a log, away from any distinctive plants. Before Quaritch could question him, he continued "We are forty kilometres from base, and in thirty minutes it will be dark and Colonel Peng will not risk a night operation to rescue us, we are on our own."

Quaritch looked at the man and his imperturbable calm and wanted to punch him dead in the face for saying that their own side would abandon them. But he did not as he realized it was true. He wondered why they had not been rescued as they had been unconscious for some time. He looked up into the jungle canopy and realized they had fallen in such a way as to not largely disturb the tree canopy, and the heat from the damned forest would have obscured thermal views of themselves. Quaritch saw his communication set was intact, and so was the pilot's. However the range was only twenty kilometres.

"Do you know which way Hell's Gate is Sergeant?" he asked.

The man on the log shrugged his shoulders. An American voice spoke up "I do sir." Quaritch spun round to see the other man with bulging arms holding a SAW and a GPS he pointed straight ahead of himself "It's that way."

"Well then let's get going" said Quaritch. He felt for his assault rifle and was grateful to see it was still intact, but he had lost his pistol. Oh well, he would make do.

Setting out on forty kilometre walk in the forests of Pandora was not easy, there were no paths and they had to move slowly as all the PLA sergeant would tell them that this or that plant was dangerous, or gut over this log. By the time it was dark, they had only covered two kilometres, and even then the PLA sergeant said it was lightning fast on foot for Pandora.

As it became dark, Quaritch became more nervous, with exopacks on, you could not use night vision, and with every innocent whistle and hum of wildlife, he sweated, thinking of the predators it could conceal. On Earth it was not too different, picking up potential villains among the background hum of city life.

Then he heard a deep throated growl. It ran towards them. The pilot was the first to see it, and the first to get it. He yelled with the fear of someone who knows death is imminent, emptying his pistol clip at the charging viperwolves and killing five but being overwhelmed. Quaritch, the other American, and the Chinese did not have time to help him, as they were too busy blazing away to save themselves. They took down all but one of the viperwolves. The last one charged for Quaritch. He pulled out his combat knife and gutted it, the thing died with a whimper, only then could they help the pilot. He was dead. A claw had cut his aorta and he had bled to death. At least he was not eaten alive, but his corpse would be eaten, there was nothing they could do for him though. The men all reloaded, paid their last respects and left.

They made another six kilometres at the same rate. Viperwolves attacked them again at this point, fewer of them, so they were all dead before there was any need for hand to hand fighting. Again they reloaded but they were all nervous, it was night and they could not see. The PLA sergeant voiced all their fears when he said "Na'vi. They'll come for us, they come to the sounds of battle. To kill one of us for them is a great honor."

"Na'vi ain't as bad as a Thanator" said the other American in a hushed voice. "Just so ya know sir" he said to Quaritch "A Thanator is like one of those nasty things that attacked us earlier, but a hell of a lot bigger. You're screwed if you don't have armor piercing rounds on ya, and even then, you'll probably just annoy it."

As he climbed over another fallen tree Quaritch said "Good thing then that I carry nothing but AP rounds, problem is it just makes a nice clean hole."

They shut up after that and continued for another four kilometres without interruption. Quaritch then added "No doubt _she_ told the damned blue devils that it was a great honor to kill us."

"Who? Doctor Grace Augustine?" asked the PLA sergeant.

"I think you're wrong Colonel. She may be misanthropic, but she ain't homicidal" said the other American.

"You don't know her like I know her" Quaritch growled.

"How can you know her? You've only been here a very short while" said the other American.

Quaritch did not respond but kept marching, four more kilometres, and they were not nearly there yet. Night time was not over. A beastly yell, more terrifying than any real or extinct terran animal rose. Whatever it was it was huge, and hungry, but none of them could see it. The time for stealth was over "Thanator!" cried the sergeant, but not even he knew where it was coming from. They were in a large clearing, trees all around, it was the sort of scene that only a book or a movie can capture.

Then they heard it charging and yelling. As it came within 50 meters at last Quaritch knew where it was coming from and shifted his aim to that direction. When the thing burst out into the moonlight Quaritch nearly soiled himself. It could swallow him whole. A six legged beast with a huge mouth and well developed leg muscles. Neither he nor anyone else hesitated. They fired as fast they could. Quaritch managed to take one of its eyes out in the first few seconds. The creature howled and presented its flank as it tried to recover from the shock of permanently losing part of itself. The bullets slammed into it, just angering it more. Quaritch's heart rose when he heard the other American say "Bite this!" and familiar whoosh of a grenade being fired from a launcher. The grenade tore off one of the beasts legs, and it was done for. It knew it however and resolved to take the three humans with it. It dragged itself towards the humans. Quaritch knew what to do. He shouldered his rifle, drew his knife and charged it. The thing raised a paw to tear him to shreds. Quaritch jumped on that paw and from there immediately onto its head, where he stabbed downwards, as soon as he landed, and swiped the blade sideways. It is death throes the thing bucked Quaritch off itself, sending him sprawling on the ground only three meters from itself. It opened its mouth to howl, but then its head exploded as another grenade exploded right inside its head, ripping it apart.

Quaritch lay back and breathed in deeply, and exhaled. That had been scary! That had been scarier than anything on Earth. He got up quickly though, and unshouldered his rifle, and said panting "Lets go." The other two were in a similar state and did as they were told, all amazed they were still alive.

"Man sir, that was bad ass!" exclaimed the American. "Whoa to take on a Thanator like that, whooeee! I hope I never get on your bad side!" he said laughing with relief.

"Hey you killed it soldier, I should be thanking you. What were you?" asked Quaritch.

"I was a Ranger sir, before I made the mistake of coming out here to this hellhole."

Quaritch was about to say that if they survived that they could survive anything, but he held his tongue. They were not nearly done yet, there was a lot to do before they could celebrate. It was remarkably silent for the next seven kilometres, maybe after taking on that thing, the wildlife of Pandora was reluctant to challenge them to a fight. Quaritch began to think they would all make it. He was wrong.


	6. Chapter 6

_Part 6, in which we actually get to see the story from the perspective of a young Tsu'tey, for a bit. _

Well Quaritch knew he was wrong when he felt something fly through the air with the sound of flexible material and wrap itself around his entire body. He fell and quickly pulled the stuff off him, he saw the other two struggling with similar stuff, and were pulling it off themselves as fast as they could. Not fast enough, next thing they knew Quaritch was straining his neck to look at the ten foot tall Na'vi that were surrounding them, eight in all, they were dead. Or perhaps not, the Na'vi were threatening them but not immediately moving in for the kill like the first bunch.

They began speaking to each other in their weird language. Up close Quaritch hated them even more, they stared at him with undisguised contempt, and were practically naked. He saw two of them were female, looking at him and the others as if they were lacking. Well compared to a Na'vi man they always would be, but Quaritch had no interest in Xenophilic relations.

"Get up sky man" said the eldest of them all, a man who was younger than Quaritch, but did not think that he deserved any respect. Quaritch did as he was told and returned their stares, even though they could easily pound him into nothing. "You Sky people are the worst warriors there could ever be, always making noise, no stealth. We followed you from your Iron Ikran to here. You have been upsetting the balance of life with your actions, you should all be dead like one of you is." Quaritch wanted to pull his knife out and charge the devil right then and there. He did not care that he would be lucky if he wounded it and would die, how dare this thing tell him he should be dead, and that the pilot deserved to die. The blue monkey continued "Still you three have survived longer than any sky people, and to kill a Palulukan without dying is most impressive."

Quaritch was not surprised this thing knew English, as he knew she who could not be named had been teaching them English, but they evidently did not think much of the language as a means of understanding humans. It was clear they had no desire to understand humanity. If they had no desire to learn then neither did Quaritch. "You know what buddy? You're right we make bad warriors. But we are better than warriors, we're soldiers, and that is far better than any of you could hope to be!" he spat defiantly.

The thing kicked him lightly, and Quaritch felt like a bullet train had slammed into him. He was sent hurling back five meters, but amazingly nothing was broken. "Be silent sky man or you will be dead even sooner. My companions are worried that if all the sky people are like yourself we are doomed, but I wish to show them that I can defeat even the best and the bravest" he said arrogantly.

Quaritch noticed now what looked like a Na'vi child watching all this. He was a foot taller than Quaritch but for a Na'vi miniscule. He could see the little bastard was happy that the sky man was getting shown who was boss. He turned to look at the Na'vi again "Who's that? Me?" asked Quaritch.

The Na'vi snorted "Yes, not that that is saying much. I challenge you to fight, if you win, you are all free to leave. If you lose you're all dead."

"Hey your fight is with me not my men..." shouted Quaritch

"You don't dictate here little man" said the Na'vi, all his cronies drew back, dragging his men with them, the little child was watching expectantly, thirsty for the blood of a human. "Now fight you coward" it said drawing a knife. Quaritch drew his knife and prepared to fight to the death.

Tsu'tey watched as his father got ready to kill the sky man. He hated sky people they destroyed the forest, and killed their mother, they killed the animals without thought, and showed no regard for anything but their own lives, he hated them. He hated them even more because they were bad warriors and cowards. No sky person would fight solo, only in a large group. Even then they relied on those small fast arrows which could cover great distances so quickly. They also used false bodies in a pathetic attempt to communicate, appearing to be like them to deceive them. They flew false Ikran which spat cowardly arrows, and arrows which produced fire unexpectedly. The sky people were cowards. He wanted to see his father kill one. He wanted the insignificant little man to die.

His father drew his knife after the sky person and with far better grace circled with the sky man. The sky man said something goading, and his father charged, fast, like the skilful warrior he was, swinging his knife. Except to Tsu'tey's shock, the sky person was not there when his father's blade arrived. The Sky man was already under his father and with what to a Na'vi was a pathetic war cry the sky man had imbedded his blade in his father and was slicing through his calf to cripple him. He father lashed out and caught the sky man in the chest, sending him six meters back, where he landed with a grunt. For the first time Tsu'tey saw his father in real pain "Sempul!" he cried. His father tried to look at him reassuringly, but Tsu'tey knew after the Sky man was dead, they would have to help him back to Hometree. He considered going out to kill the sky man to help his father. He reconsidered, thinking that if this sky person could wound his father, he would easily kill a relatively untrained him.

The Sky man was up and injured, but not at all phased. He slowly advanced towards his father. He came closer and closer, until his father thought he had him and swung his blade again. He missed and then the sky man was upon him, but this time his father was ready, with one hand he swooped down on the sky man and pinned him to the floor. With pain still on his face his father raised the hand with his knife in it to kill the human. The human began squirming, and just dogded the knife as it came down, imbedding itself in the ground where the sky man's head had been only a few moments before. Suddenly his father cried out in pain, and the sky man ran his knife across the hand that was holding him down. With that same injured hand his father picked the sky man up and threw him, knocking off his mask. The Sky man was winded and began coughing. Tsu'tey was even more concerned for his father, but pleased that Eywa hated the sky people so much the air itself was deadly.

His father charged again, swinging his blade at the sky person who would be dead soon without his mask. Tsu'tey felt sure the sky man dead, yet amazingly he was on his feet and staring stone faced at the great warrior as he bore down on him. His father swung his blade, but missed them, and then the sky man was on him slicing his father where it really hurt and bringing an intense cry of pain from the disciplined Na'vi warrior. Tsu'tey started crying as his father sank to his knees the pain overwhelming his training, and then looking at his son with an expression Tsu'tey later understood was goodbye. Then with the same feeble yell, the Sky man imbedded his blade in his father's forhead, twisted, then pulled it out.

Tsu'tey blubbered uncontrollably as his father sank lifeless to the ground.

With a fury at his situation Quaritch snarled at all the blue devils that now shrunk back in actual fear from him after the death of their leader. Looking with hatred at his fallen enemy he went to retrieve his exopack and put it over him. He inhaled deeply, the oxygen driving the panic from his body. He twirled his knife. "Come on!" he yelled. How dare they threaten the lives of his men. "Whose next? Come on! Is that the best you got?!" One of the females grabbed the sobbing boy, the dead Na'vi being the boy's father obviously and dragged him off. The others murderously glared at Quaritch and then one of them plunged his blade into the PLA sergeant's chest. "NO!" screamed Quaritch and he actually began crying. It just was not fair, not after all the man had been through, not after all they had been through. "NO! I'll kill you!" he screamed, as the Na'vi withdrew his dagger from the Chinese and ran along with his compatriots. Quaritch dropped his knife, unshouldered his rifle and as he saw the last bit of the Na'vi disappear into the night, futility empty his clip at it, screaming in rage.

When his clip was empty, he sat down, and wept and hoped to die this night. He hated this planet already. He did not understand, why did it wish to kill them? Why were the natives so keen to kill, instead of understand them, build a rapport? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

"SIR!" shouted the Ranger to him, and Quaritch immediately stop crying and looked up at the man, and knew something had been killed in him already, something that could not be fully recovered. "Sir, he's gone, but we have to keep moving. You know that he would want that, we have to survive. We'll avenge him later, but we can't if we stay here. All we can do here is die!"

Amazingly Quaritch recovered quickly. His brain told him that he needed to survive, and not get soft. He looked at the Na'vi he had killed, proud in life, pathetic in death. He preferred those who were physically weak in life, but took their death with courage and understanding. This one had had courage but no understanding. He went to pick up his knife noticing for the first time that one of his ribs was probably broken. Then they were off.

They had not gotten far when they heard that same deep throated growl of many voices, viperwolves. Quaritch knew this could be the end as there was only him and the other American, and lots of nasty critters. He saw the glow of their eyes as they came towards him. Then he heard another noise behind him. It was a massive growl, and the sound of a tree trunk breaking as a battering ram slammed into it. He turned to see that massive Pandoran Rhinoceros thing coming towards them. They were between a rock and hard place. "Give me a frickin' break!" Quaritch shouted, and ran screaming towards the viperwolves, firing as he went. He did not see the other American, but heard him firing at the Rhinoceros thing. He killed all but two. Both jumped on him as he dropped his rifle and drew his knife. The one who jumped at his face was the one who caused the scars. As it came down it ran its claws along the right side of his face drawing blood from deep wounds. Amazingky he felt no pain when it happened, just a dull sensation he knew was an adrenal coping mechanism. In a rage for everything that had happened, the scars being the crowning insult, he stabbed his knife through the creature's chin, and into its brain, and pulled out his knife from it and threw it off him, blood blinding him and coming down into his mouth. He tasted the iron, and he slashed violently at the thing which was on his knees and coming towards its belly. It whimpered with deceptively sympathetic tones, as Quaritch brutally slaughtered it. He heard the other American scream and somehow knew he was dead. With a fury he repeatedly stabbed the creature then gutted it, the blood dripping off his face. He turned to look at the rhinoceros thing, and did not see the other American, but it had stopped and was not coming towards him. As the adrenaline left him the pain came, and Quaritch, exhausted fainted.

He next knew of the world when he dimly heard through his semi-consciousness and pain the whirr of helicopter blades, and a beautiful woman's face looking at him through an exopack mask. He thought he was in heaven as if he was still alive he would be faced with some ugly dumb grunt with bad breath. The pain, the awful pain which told him that the right side of his face was swollen told him he was alive, and that this woman would have no interest in him. "Too soft!" he declared, barely hearing himself and he knew no one else could. "We were hard, all bad ass, but too soft. Not our fault, but too soft." He faded out as gentle female hands lifted him by his arms, and his uncaring male ones his legs.

Selfridge was for once completely lost as to what he would say after hearing that story. What was there to say, it was a traumatizing story and Quaritch, while not blubbering, was crying. Selfridge could tell that the look of dumb awe and shock on Sully's face was the same one on his. After going through all that Selfridge was surprised that Quaritch still functioned as well as he did. Selfridge felt so emotionally drained after hearing that story that he had to go and sit down. At least he decided to speak "Well Colonel, thank you for trusting the both of us enough to tell us that story. I can say safely your secret is safe with us. That story..." he paused still dumb from the memory of hearing it, realizing how the traumatic experiences he had had, in all their sum, could never match what Quaritch had been through. It made him realize how fortunate and protected he was from the nastiness of Earth and Pandora. It made him grateful for the service provided by Quaritch, and that if he said the Na'vi needed to die, he was right. "...is so powerful only you could tell it. I'm very sorry for what happened, that was a real..." well there was no word to describe it "...even for Pandora." He suddenly completely shared the Colonel's revulsion at Augustine's love for the planet and its people. "Well Sully, Colonel, I think you guys had better go to this morning's briefing for the officers on the Na'vi tree. I need to think things over" he said softly.

Quaritch nodded and said to Sully "Come on son, let's go." Sully followed him without a word, and Quaritch realized to his surprise that his story had shocked the administrator more deeply than he realized. For him and Sully that was just another example of a soldier's reality. For the administrator something entirely outside his existence, and therefore it must have been an overload on his empathy. Yet Quaritch had forgotten how it was hard to empathise with traumatic situations. He had experienced them too many times for it to be a simple matter of empathy any more.


	7. Chapter 7

_Part 7, where we see the height of good relations between Sully and Quaritch_. _Norm and Andrei meet, things don't go well._

Quaritch walked behind Sully out of respect for his disabled status and so that he felt valued as part of the team and not as just a tool of the team. The senior officers were all there, most prominent being Lieutenant Colonel Simmons his deputy. Lieutenant Andrei Semyonov was in a corner trying not to be noticed, and had a recording device so that it would be on audio record in case the memory of the officers failed them. He never seemed to smile, always wearing a stern or expressionless face. He also always seemed to be extremely tense, as if someone spoke to him that would be enough provocation for him to draw his weapon. Quaritch wondered why this was, and knew it had everything to do with Earth and nothing with Pandora, yet there was no background on Andrei he could access before his time to joining the Company.

But there was a briefing now and Quaritch was anxious to hear what Sully had to say. If it was good, and that was information that could be used to really hurt the Na'vi bad he would talk to Selfridge right away about getting the company to pay for his operation. However Quaritch was aware that neither he nor Selfridge was too popular with the board of directors or most of the shareholders. It was not known to the public, the RDA having to present a unified front, but Selfridge and Quaritch had been pressing for the Company to double the amount of money it was putting in to water purification and forest restoration. Selfridge was right, shareholders did not like a bad quarterly statement.

He turned from his thoughts for a moment and focused on Sully as they were now around the holographic map, someone already having brought up the Na'vi Hometree up so the meeting could commence promptly. It was necessary as Sully had to be in the Avatar room in twenty five minutes. Before Sully started Quaritch spoke to the officers "Gentlemen, we are pressed for time as our boy here" he said affectionately patting Sully on the shoulder "has to leave at the latest in 15 minutes. I want no questions from anyone, until he says he is done. We can ask questions tomorrow, so I therefore ask you to write 'em down so you don't forget." He turned to Jake "Go ahead Jake, we're all listening."

Sully seemed to be nervous at first, having the rapt attention of so many officers, and being conscious of the fact that he needed to be fluid. "Well um, as you can see it is a really big tree, so an axe ain't gonna do it." Quaritch saw him swallow nervously at the awkward starting, but was grateful to see all of the officers were looking patient, doing nothing to make him nervous. He indicated the outside of the tree. "These roots hold it in place and give its general structure, however the tree itself is hollow." Quaritch was relieved that he was gaining confidence, he was doing well. He silently willed Sully to keep going. "They have more than enough space inside for the three hundred plus members of the tribe in there. Now inside", he said pointing inside the holographic tree "there's a secondary ring in here." He then moved his hand up and down inside the holographic tree "They have an inner row of columns here, that sort of form stairs, real heavy duty. That's how they move up and down." He nervously scratched his head and then continued. "Now these things, that is the secondary ring are easily six meters thick. Next, all unmarried men and women, as well as all married men, serve as warriors. They all carry a bow, about a dozen arrows, as well as a knife with them. They also have their direhorses" he now pointed to a tributary stream at the back of the tree "here, and their banshees up on top of the tree. Furthermore, the banshees are unique to their rider, you kill the banshee you inflict a tremendous moral blow upon the rider. Furthermore at any one time there are always twenty warriors away from the Hometree keeping watch on tribal lands, only when the chief calls a council are all members of the tribe present." He paused "That's all I've got to say sir."

He looked at Quaritch reassuringly, and Quaritch looked back. He then realized he still had a look of stern concentration on and quickly softened his features to reassurance "Yeah that fine, that's great, keep at it, and we'll do one of these every three days. Oh and we're gonna need accurate scans on every coulumn." He glanced at his watch "Okay we have nine minutes." He looked at the officers "Gentlemen you may ask your questions."

Lt. Colonel Simmons had a question "Yes, how well trained are the children as warriors, should we consider them a threat, should things go that far?"

Quaritch would have asked that question too, but regretted it had been asked. Unlike all the officers, Sully had no experienced the darker side of the Na'vi, he was living among them, and even though Quaritch could tell he disliked them, he saw them as people. It was something that should not have been asked.

Sully still answered, but was uncomfortable. "Well sir the children all get taught how to make weapons, and from the age of twelve, how to be warriors and to hunt. They are trained for five or six years before they are declared to have passed into adulthood. So anyone who looks older than twelve can be considered a threat if things go that far."

Simmons nodded and said "Thank you, let's hope you can coax them out peacefully, I don't like war, except in war games."

Quaritch could not agree more, he looked around. Major Darwin, the haughty and anti-American ex-Royal Marine put his hand up. "How many Na'vi are trained to use banshees?" he asked.

"Well everyone is sir, but they usually fight fifty-fifty" responded Sully.

Quaritch had asked his questions and looked around and saw no one else seemed to have questions. Before he could open his mouth to dismiss everyone, a clear and sharp accented voice came through the air. The shock of the noise like a knife ripping suddenly through fabric. "What indication have you so far that the Na'vi will abandon the tree?"

Quaritch and everyone else looked to see Andrei suddenly at attention and nervous being the object of attention. He looked like he was about to apologize, and Quaritch was aware he was contributing to the young man's discomfort, as he had a nasty look on. That question could ruin the good mood of the meeting. He then realized how important that question was, and how correct it was, why else were they here if they did not all have that question. Quaritch saw Sully looked unsure about answering, so he said "That's a good question Andrei, one that needs answering" he turned to Jake "Jake, if you please."

Sully again swallowed nervously "Well, I don't think I know 'em well enough to bring up the subject yet or see if there is anything we can provide that is good enough to make them move. From what I've seen and I how they hate us I don't think they will" he said looking directly at Andrei, who wore a stern expression throughout.

Andrei relaxed a bit "Thank you Corporal" then went back into his obscurity.

Quaritch looked at the officer for half a second longer than anyone else. Asking good questions like that meant Andrei had potential yet he did not seem too anxious to use it. He turned back to everyone else, making a note to send Andrei out on a patrol to see how he performed in combat.

Quaritch now turned back to everyone else "Okay is that it?" he asked. No one else answered, "Alright then you're dismissed."

Andrei Semyonov cautiously approached Sully and nearly jumped back in fright as Sully turned to face him with a look on his face that told him that Sully was not too fond of him and wanted to be rid of his company as soon as possible. "Do you need help getting downstairs Corporal?" he asked quietly, trying to keep an expressionless face.

Sully seemed to be insulted by this "What you're saying I can't manage sir?" he asked with just a slight edge of aggression in his voice.

Andrei looked for the Colonel to give him so moral support and assure Sully he meant well with this offer. He stuttered his next response "Well, no its just, I , wanted, to um, make your job, uh...easier," He swallowed nervously after he was finished.

"Well please don't I can manage" he then seemed to remember Andrei was an officer and bitterly added "sir."

Once again his status as an officer had brought him no respect, and everyone except the Colonel seemed to think he was an obsequious little weasel, who had gotten where he was by toadying. That description was more appropriate for Major Darwin, who was two faced. He showed the unattractive parts of the British national character to the Colonel, haughtiness, supreme contempt for other nationalities, and a complete immunity to the concept that any criticism towards himself from someone who was not British should be dismissed out of hand. To Selfridge, he was charming, polite, affable, and open minded. He did sound higher class than the Colonel and was less bellicose. Andrei knew, and every aware non-British personnel in Security Operations knew that his civility was a mask concealing what was underneath. How Andrei could be thought of as being like that escaped him, especially since he and the Colonel got into arguments sometimes, albeit good natured, on whose country was better.

"I shall accompany you to the science labs then" declared Andrei agreeably, yet still sounding nervous.

Sully grimaced but it was clear he knew that he could not refuse "Fine lets go, sir."

Andrei felt like beating up on a cripple right then and there. Even though his injuries prevented Sully from having any feeling there, Andrei knew that Jake Sully, at least to him, was something which he could no longer use.

When he entered the Avatar room Andrei nearly fled for his life. Everyone glared at the sight of his uniforms. Andrei used his hatred of them to keep him in place. They were unintentionally reactionary with their collective Liberalism. Sully offered him a very brief look of sympathy seeing this occur. He wheeled over to his driving station. The Indian doctor from yesterday was glaring at him now, and Andrei wondered at this volte face.

He straightened himself and walked forward to where Sully was going. He found his way blocked by a man easily half a foot taller than him. He was thin but everything in him suggested, that despite his colourful Hawaiian shirt which lay open and untucked, along with his fashionably tattered adventurer khaki trousers, and grey t-shirt that he was powerful physically. Andrei knew how to run for a long time and could do fifty press-ups but he could sense right away that he would be no match in a fight. He could tell that this man's intentions were not good as he was standing with outstretched arms and a glare on his face.

Andrei looked up at him in the eyes, bunched his right fist, ready to punch out hard at a moments noticed, but kept his face passive.

"Hey go back" this man said threateningly.

Then Andrei, from doing a background check for the Colonel remembered who this was, as he saw Sully get into his Avatar link and the lid close. This was Norm Spellman, who was a Na'vi linguist and Avatar driver. "Good morning to you too Doctor Spellman" answered Andrei ironically "I'm authorized to be here, let me pass."

He moved to the Doctor's left but the Doctor adjusted his position to block him. He was now just as threatening and there was no mistaking the threat in his eyes, he kept the same voice "Go back, you guys ain't interfering in this anymore than you already are."

Andrei's eyes became murderous and he became more ready. How did they know? This was bad. "Doctor, I am allowed to observe please allow me through."

"Don't let him through Norm" called Augustine over from the now functioning Avatar capsule in which Corporal Sully was in. Andrei turned and walked away, and saw for a moment the Doctor drop his stance and turn to his work, but then Andrei came simply went round by the other way walking quickly and with purpose. The Doctor doubled over to stop him, and said "last warning."

Andrei had had enough "Why the hell are you being such a jerk?" he demanded.

"This is a science matter no a military matter, we're not gonna let you use this as a means of achieving aggressive ends. We need to bond with the Na'vi. Right now the fact that one of your men in there already is bad enough, we need to be on damage control and the last thing we need is more bad influence on him. I mean its already unfair that one of your idiots is in there not one of us."

Suddenly something dawned on Andrei "Oh I see you're jealous of him Doctor."

The man was certainly a knife's edge away from attacking him now, but the thought of him throwing the first punch amused Andrei too much for him to stop. "No. I think that someone more qualified and understanding should be there. Someone who can see that what we're doing is wrong."

Andrei was bitterly amused "Ah so responding to aggressive action is wrong? Meeting force with force is wrong? Seeing force as the only option after we've tried breaking the cycle more than twice is wrong?"

The Doctor dropped his arms and thrust a finger into his face "You can't invade someone's home, destroy what is valuable to them and not expect them to fight back."

Andrei did not have the patience to continue along that line of argument. He did not have enough time to list why that was a one sided gross oversimplification about the situation on Pandora. "Ah so you're jealous that one of us is in there. You're such a hippie, you know that Doctor?"

The room was silent, everyone watching the argument. Augustine and the Indian fellow had looks of pride for Doctor Spellman, standing up to the soulless military machine and all that drivel. "What did you say?" Spellman demanded passive aggressively. He obviously knew as he said "Well unlike you I don't believe in invading a world taking whatever you want and expecting the natives to like it."

Andrei saw a soft spot "Oh I see. You came here with some elaborate fantasies did you not? You would come here, meet the natives, be taken in by a tribe and be taught how to be one of them, become one with nature, and perhaps lead a hunting party in a great human hunt or something. You have to come back to reality" he said shaking his head "So you're embittered that like one of these idiots who study marine biology that you did not get to bond with dolphins, or in this case blue monkeys and become one with..."

The fist under his chin stopped him, fortunately he did not bite anything, but was concerned that something was broken, as he flew up and backwards and then crashed down with a thud. The scientist was being restrained by people more concerned for Doctor Spellman, than with the person who had been injured. They would help the enemy but not their fellow man. He checked to make sure nothing was broken, controlling his anger and then looked up. "Yeah you don't believe in violence _suka_" he swore "You hit me and wanted to pound into a grease spot, but you're a pacifist, screw you and all the members of your family." The scientists restraining Spellman had to make an extra effort. Andrei looked at him distatefully "Under the contract, considering the circumstances, an act of violence without reciprocation but the second party, you sir owe me a $1000. Have a nice day" he paused "_Suka_." Then he walked off, glaring at everyone and vowing his revenge.


	8. Chapter 8

_Part 8, The movie was quite potty mouthed so censors you cannot complain about the language before and after this. In the meantime things start to go wrong for our heroes. _

The Colonel was displeased with Andrei when the news came in from Selfridge. The administrator had contacted the Colonel and Andrei simultaneously "Colonel Quaritch, Lieutenant Semyonov, get your asses up to my office right away, there's gonna be bloodshed."

Andrei had scarcely stood up when the Colonel stormed through looking like the god of death, and flashing Andrei a look of fury. Andrei knew he had to follow and did so with an impending feeling of doom. The moment of judgement came as they went into a narrow corridor and the Colonel rounded on him furiously, only the natural momentum kept Andrei moving forward, as the Colonel kept talking. "What the Hell did you do!" he barked.

Andrei found it difficult to find words "I..."

"You what?!" he screamed "Answer me goddamnit, Dr. Augustine is claiming you provoked a fight?! What the Hell?! You'd better explain yourself good boy when we get up there, or you're gonna be on the most dangerous assignment I can find for you by this time tomorrow, is this clear?!" the Colonel shouted.

Andrei was both terrified and angered. He had done nothing wrong, but he knew better than to argue. "Yes sir!" he said, trying to sound sharp, but it came out a more of a high pitched whimper. He abstained from saying 'Jawohl Herr Oberfuhrer!' as he was guaranteed to be in trouble then. He was having difficulty preventing tears of rage from coming to his eyes in any case.

Parker Selfridge was getting more and more annoyed as he listened to yet another Augustinian rant. He began to wonder why it was he tolerated her in the first place; her only virtues as far he could see were consistency and competence.

"You sticking your nose in my department is bad enough without Quaritch sticking his nose in my department. Can't you tell your dog where his boundaries are. Dr. Spellman here was provoked by one of Quaritch's pets. I mean give us a break! The last thing we need is another dumb musclehead who knows nothing but how to grunt, trying to micromanage us. You know I know you hate us, but some common courtesy..."

Selfridge had had enough "Doctor! Enough!" he managed to shout, rather feebly. He put his head in his hands and said "You speak of courtesy, but you lack it yourself..."

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" she interrupted, but was unable to say anything as Quaritch burst in with a look that could atomize the most fearsome opponent. The officer behind him and Selfridge were no match for it, but Doctor Augustine and Doctor Spellman were.

Miles Quaritch immediately felt two things. The first was a desire to snap she who could not be named's neck with his hands. She was always so impassive and dismissive towards him, and it especially annoyed him know, when even people like the administrator were afraid of him. It was her dismissiveness which bothered him so, he did fancy himself as being quite intimidating and important. It was not so much as she diminished him, as made him feel as if he were nothing, that the news of his death would not bring a moment's sadness to her, only that same dismissiveness. Especially considering that he knew what she had done, it made it all the worse.

The second was sorrow. He saw the science puke with the goatee, giving him the same look of contempt as Augustine, and he knew what had happened. If it was this guy who Andrei had provoked, Andrei had obviously not done much and therefore he owed Andrei an apology for the emotional damage he had dealt him. He wanted to turn round and apologize but he did not want to draw a mocking comment from either of the two scientists, as such a display of sensitivity inevitably would as they obviously believed him to be completely insensitive. So he compromised between apologizing to Andrei and throttling _her_ by saying "Alright, what the hell is Andrei accused of?"

"Hey, GI Joe" she spat "your _boy_, was in my labs trying to interfere with my work, so Doctor Spellman stopped him." She was right in his face now being dismissive and haughty again.

Quaritch was initially afraid to turn to Andrei and ask him to tell his side of the story as he had not heard it and was concerned that the volte face in his attitude would alarm Andrei so he said without looking "Tell the administrator what really happened Andrei."

"Hey, you can at least speak to your poodle when..."

Quaritch became so angry that he felt his face morph into that mask of anger and he began shaking, and although it did not cause her to be afraid, it actually managed to shut her up.

Quaritch could tell that Andrei and the administrator had the same feelings about what was passing between him and Augustine as when he spoke he spoke to the administrator as if he was a friend "Well sir I have never been to the Avatar room. I wanted to see how it would work so I decided to accompany Mr. Sully there and watch. Therefore as I went towards the Avatar capsule he was going to use, Doctor Spellman blocked my way and told me I could not go through."

"Well of course I did!" the puke shouted "you were going to..."

"Be quiet" said Selfridge quietly and the puke shut up and had a sulk. Quaritch relaxed his face and body, then turned to look at Andrei. He was proper as always, he always wore the sleeves of his combat shirt at just above the elbows, and even though standing to attention and standing at ease was not enforced here on Pandora, Andrei out of instinct it seemed, stood to attention as he recounted his story. He made Quartich proud.

"So I tried to get around him", Andrei continued, unphased, he knew that morally he was in the right and that the administrator and even his until recently infuriated superior officer would support him "he moved to block me. He then told me he was not going to let me interfere. I told him I had the right to observe. Doctor Augustine then told him affirmatively not to let me through. So I turned as if to go, then tried to go by another way. Mister Spellman..." Quaritch and Selfridge smiled at the subtle insult "...came over to stop and told me that I was on my last warning."

Quaritch saw Selfridge hold out a hand to stop Andrei and said "Let me guess, you then got into an argument about whether what we're doing here is right or not, you said something insulting about him and wanting to bond with nature, and then he hit you?"

Quaritch observed Andrei close his eyes and his face became even more passive, as if he was an AI computing something and then opened them and said "Yes sir, it is like that."

"I thought so" Selfridge sighed, obviously unhappy that his time had been wasted.

"Now hang on..." Augustine started

"Quiet Grace, okay?" said Selfridge. He turned back to Andrei "You were wrong about one thing though Andrei" the temporary worry disappeared from Andrei's face as the administrator said "The minimum he owes you if you wish to press charges is $5,000. Considering that he is a Doctor I'd say he can afford that easily." He turned to the sulking beatnik and said motioned with his finger "So Doctor pay up. If you don't by the end of this week, I'll ensure that you pay the maximum of $50,000, is this understood?"

The man tried protesting "Hey he..."

"Quiet!" barked Quaritch his face temporarily becoming that of Murder as he did. The puke shut up with extreme reluctance.

"Thank you Colonel" Quaritch heard the administrator say "We've wasted enough time on this petty dispute."

"Oh no you don't Parker, I'm not leaving until I get this pitbull" she said referring to Quaritch "out of my hair."

Quaritch was angry at having been referred to so dismissively by her yet again, especially considering what she had done. The administrator was exasperated by having to have yet another argument with her. "Alright but Spellman, Semyonov, clear out, there is no need for you two to have to suffer the moans of this harpie."

As the puke went out angrily, and Andrei followed him without any sulking or complaint, Quaritch wondered why Selfridge had suddenly been inspired to use old language instead of just cursing her.

"Parker, have you no sense of common decency?" Augustine demanded.

Quaritch could see the administrator was exhausted and that Augustine's voice got on his nerves, so he was not even bothering. "You know what I'm irrelevant here, the real argument is between the two of you, I'm just the referee, so have at it, let's get it over with."

Quaritch felt awkward being invited to have an argument, as if it was put that way it made the whole thing seem ridiculous. Augustine did not see it that way as she was right on top of it as soon as Selfridge was done speaking "I know what you've done Quaritch, you've been using Jake to spy on me and the Omaticaya, HOW DARE YOU!" she said.

Quaritch himself was fatigued by this argument and needed a break from it "You know what _Grace_" he said wearily, but also insisting on being familiar "I could not give a rat's ass about what you think is my bullying and perceived outrage in getting ready for a war."

"Hey, listen here you..."

Quaritch was suddenly in her face "No you listen here missy, they are not a peaceful people. Everyone in there from the age of six is trained how to be a warrior. I read your goddamned book, they are a warrior society and people, men and women get ahead by showing their skill at being a warrior. That means killing something, and as we both know, the more dangerous the game, the more honor for the warrior. On this planet, we're the most dangerous game." He now put his finger in her face "I was attacked by those savages on day, they didn't offer to help us get home, or show us around, it was twenty of them trying to kill us. Later after we'd been battling freaking viperwolves, they surrounded us, and demanded I give them a one on one battle to the death."

She forcefully jerked his hand from her face, and pushed him away, making him angry, but he was not going to strike her, much as he wanted to you. "Yeah and in doing say you soured relations with the Omaticaya, as you killed twenty one of their warriors that day Quaritch, you could have..."

"Could have what?!" he screamed "Let them kill me?! I don't think so!" he calmed down a bit then said "You just like the blue monkeys because you have no faith in mankind, you disgust me!"

"Oh yeah? What reason have I to have faith in humanity, we come from a giant urban slum, with barely any green, living off algae, seaweed, eggs, wheat, quorn. People die every day, we still wage wars over little scraps of land and metal. Also this beloved company made our planet mostly unbreathable because in the 21st century we pumped so much CO2 and H2S into our atmosphere that we killed ourselves by making the air unbreathable. We're dead Quaritch, we're merely on life support, at least the Na'vi are living a pure form of life."

Selfridge came in "Yellow card Grace, the company is now helping the air purification efforts, even company executives are not willing to live in a cesspit if it means greater profit. Proceed guys."

"You know what?" Quaritch said "I do not have to listen to this hippie crap. Just because the actions of your race disgust you, does not mean you give up on it. You try and change it for the better! But you know what? I am wasting my breath you; you couldn't stand up for your own family, much less humanity!"

Grace saw where he was going and said in a voice that would have frozen a lesser man "Don't you dare Miles!"

She could not stop him though "Yeah, go on, tell Selfridge here how you abandoned your husband and baby daughter to come here. Go on and tell him how the life of your baby girl was worth less to you than the study of plant life on this planet. Tell him" he said calmly.

Selfridge was now extremely attentive "What's he talking about Grace? You were married to someone when you came here?" he said disbelieving.

Quaritch grimaced, even Selfridge was bought in by her concern for the natives, as regard for life, instead of seeing through the vague fascism in her views. 'Purer form of life' 'good simple people' is how she referred to the Na'vi, obviously enjoying their world more than her own. He hated her, he knew what she had done.

"He's lying" she said fiercely "He's just inventing stuff cause he does not have any good arguments, for as to why we're entitled to take whatever we want. He knows its wrong, but wants to use a war to make himself more important and set up a military dictatorship" she said this with the same self righteous tone she always used. Quaritch smiled though, he could detect a hint of desperation, she was afraid of the 'good and pure Augustine' myth being blown apart.

"Oh don't be like that _Grace_. You know what happened and so do I. We were married after all" he said, smiling with malicious glee, that concealed his hatred for her and what she had to him and Anna-Lee.

Before Selfridge could ask the inevitable question or Augustine say something to defend herself. He walked out of the office. If anything more was said it would destroy the impact of the statement. In any case he had to get back to work, and worry about the enemy without, rather than the pest within.


	9. Chapter 9

_Part 9, those who have been reading keep reading, you won't be disappointed _

Quaritch heard that Grace Augustine had requested to move the Avatar operation with Jake to site 26 in the Hallelujah mountains. Quaritch knew that Grace knew about him and Jake, so this was a plan to get Jake away from what she perceived to be his bad influence. He also wondered if it had anything to do with his revelation about the two of them.

What he did know is that Augustine had gotten her request accepted by Selfridge, who was probably anxious to be rid of her. Quaritch did not voice his fears that Sully might be corrupted while he was away from the base, as the scientists would do their best, not out of malice, to immerse him in the fantasy. He could understand the appeal of easy paradise, but he thought that people as smart as all the quacks in the Avatar program would have better sense than to pursue it.

He had more pressing problems anyway, there had been fatalities. Some miner had been killed when a Na'vi arrow had impaled him. A dozen members of the security detail had gone after the shooter, and one of them had been killed herself by another arrow from the unseen shooter. To make matters worse, in the following hour an acid plant had injured four miners. There was a whole mess of paperwork to wade through over this mess for everybody. He wondered how Grace would react to the news that two people had been killed by a Na'vi. It would either be dismissiveness or an impassioned speech about how the Na'vi had every right to be doing what they were doing. Quaritch at this moment had time for neither. This incident was also upsetting as he wanted to do something else, that was parallel to what Jake was doing.

Since Augustine had never offered him his own Avatar, Quaritch had no idea about being out in the field on Pandora and seeing its more beautiful side. It was hard to see the beauty when you were too busy fighting for your life. He needed an Avatar not to bond with 'Eywa' or anything like that, but to follow up on what Jake was saying and verify it for himself and know for certain that the scientists were serious and not a bunch of potheads. What he needed in lieu of that was a human being as his eyes on the ground.

The person who he wanted was obvious to him. Andrei Semyonov would do well he thought at leading the reconnaissance missions he wanted conducted. These principally included mapping out definitively the area inside the flux vortex of the Hallelujah mountains, any sacred places to the Na'vi that Jake reported, and instead of doing this whole bad joke of using Avatars to bond with the natives, actually allowing them to talk to a human being.

It would be his own original, and final peace initiative to the Na'vi. If it failed he knew that the excrement would hit the fan very shortly and that they had all better start gearing up for a war with the local clan, if not a good part of the Na'vi in a thousand kilometre radius. Even though Selfridge had given him a very wide berth in military matters, he felt that this was something he should seek approval for first. He delegated much of the incident paperwork to a very grumpy Lieutenant Colonel Simmons. He then rehearsed his argument in his head, and the plan and then went to see the administrator to get approval.

"So, you want to ask me permission to do deep reconnaissance in Omaticaya territory, potentially upsetting whatever ground the Avatar team might be making, and to try and use a human being instead of an Avatar to interact with them?" asked Selfridge critically.

"Yes sir I do, I have a plan ready, we will be as passive as possible, and we can actually speak for most of the humans on this base, instead of for those who only see Pandora's beauty and humanity's ugliness" said Quaritch confidently.

Selfridge shrugged "Well I don't see what we have to lose Colonel, go ahead I ain't gonna stop you but there is a catch."

"What?" asked Quaritch carefully.

"If Augustine finds out and complains, you're gonna have to do all the conciliating not me, I just can't handle her, she gives me so much stress, I just, well, you know. Anyway I trust that you know what you're doing Colonel, if we make a breakthrough in Na'vi-Human relations by doing this, it'll be great. I will finally have an excuse to kick Augustine and most of her scientists off this planet, and back to Earth where they can swim with Dolphins" he said mischeviously.

Quaritch smiled "Yes sir, that would be really good, I'll get right on it."

Andrei was not as happy with the idea "Sir, while I will not shirk my duty I will not do this with a skeleton crew, so you will not like this request sir" he said, obviously tensing himself for an awkward moment.

Quaritch himself could sense that what was next going to come out of Andrei's mouth would make things awkward. "What would that be Andrei?" he asked in a friendly but cautious tone.

"Well sir I would like the use of the Dragon gunship, and a team of eight men besides myself who would come with me anywhere I went. I would also want a corporate man if possible to come with us in some cases, if we established a rapport with the Natives."

Quaritch never once managed to make eye contact with Andrei throughout his request as Andrei was sheepishly looking at his shoes, hoping to avoid the basilisk's stare he thought that Quaritch was giving him. "Don't worry Andrei I can arrange that, that is not an unreasonable request. Just remember that until we get that other Dragon built you are borrowing that gunship from me, take good care of it and don't do anything stupid." Andrei seemed relieved by this. Quaritch stood up from his desk and activated the projector in his office. The image on the screen was split between a map of the area around Hometree, and the Hallelujah mountains. "You will have discretion in all matters while you are on mission son, except when you go, and where you go. You will go when I say, even if it is at night, as with the Dragon I dare say you will be safe as safe can be on Pandora. You will also" he said pointing to the two maps "not have the discretion about what region you explore. It will be one of these two, and I will tell you which one you will be exploring on any particular day." Andrei nodded and took note of this throughout, always serious and affirmative, and not in an obsequious way either. No an obsequious person would not have asked for use of the Dragon, before Quaritch had suggested it. "The order in which you explore these regions and how you go about mapping them, verifying what Sully tells me, and establishing contact with the Natives I leave up to you. Do you understand what you have to do Andrei?"

"Yes sir" he answered.

Quaritch nodded "Good" he said and then sat back down. "You will start the day after tomorrow, and I am trusting you to get ready for it and sort everything with Captain O' Donnell. He may outrank but I'll let him knew that you tell him where to go, but you understand of course to not go where he says the helicopter cannot go, don't you Andrei?" he asked gently.

"Yes sir. I am aware of how awkward it will be for the Captain to be ordered around by someone junior in rank to him, I will strive to make it as un-awkward as possible."

"Please do, you do this for me Andrei, I'll see to it you get a promotion. Now go pick your men and pick them well. Tomorrow you will talk with me and Captain O'Donnell and I'll tell you guys which region you're starting in okay?"

"Very good sir, I shall do as you command" Andrei said, and went out. Quaritch watched him go and felt the giddy excitement that comes with the launch of a plan that he had not felt in a long time. He might actually have set in motion a plan that could bring about a peaceful solution and the thought pleased him. However in the back of his mind, that cold experienced voice reminded him that with the Na'vi, it was just unlikely. He understood that he and his men were partly to blame, as they refused to respect a culture that seemed to have only their destruction in mind, as, if unobtanium was not mined things would be a lot rougher on Earth. The Na'vi thought that only they could teach, the humans should teach nothing. They obviously thought that the Avatar program should be the only human operation on the planet. Quaritch hated them as a result, and he knew he exacerbated things by refusing to respect the beliefs of the Natives, and not thinking of them in human terms, even though the two species were quite similar. He knew he made things worse by instead of being sure that a solution could be reached, he attacked it as if there was already a war.

Andrei was apprehensive about choosing people, he did not know anybody by their merits or by names. He knew only two soldiers by sight Corporal Wainfleet and Private Fike. Since the former was not accompanying Augustine on her trip he would be available.

However he knew that not one soldier thought well of him, and would not take kindly to being ordered around by him. However he could not do what he had done in the cadets, and that was ignore their disobedience and carry on. Here he had to assert his authority, and in this respect having the backing of the Colonel and the Dragon gunship at your disposal were good tokens to bend people to your will. He logged into his computer and through his authorization as an officer searched for the whereabouts of Corporal Wainfleet and Private Fike. They were both in the gym exercising. "Great" he said to himself "just the place I wanted to avoid."

The thought of being in a room full of aggressive, dumb muscular men and feisty, athletic women who were keen to prove they were better than men by beating up on a weakling like himself did not appeal to him. He had to assemble a crew and both Fike and Wainfleet were noted for excellence and experience something he needed as he had little. He wondered why he had been chosen by the Colonel when there were more capable men than himself. He also wondered why the Colonel seemed to favour him, someone who had been mocked for even contemplating military service while he was in school.

He stood up and made his way to the gym. It was exactly as he anticipated it. It was warm, and the moisture from the evaporated sweat made it stink, as well as making it horribly humid. He started to sweat a bit but kept his composure. It was not long before people were looking at him. All the men were looking at him with contempt, wondering what he was doing there. The women had the same looks mostly, the other was cold neutrality, only one seemed to look at him in a positive way and this was not flattering as she was quite ugly. He kept his features passive, walked with purpose and precision, searching the room for the men so he could get out of there as quickly as possible. He found Wainfleet first lifting an intimidatingly heavy weight, he went over to him and fixed the man with a look of officerly impatience. The man ignored him and continued.

"Put the weight down now Corporal" said Andrei blandly.

The man looked at him with vague disbelief then set it down, and with barely disguised contempt asked "What do you want Lieutenant?"

"I need you to go on a reconnaissance mission with me, Colonel's orders" he said blandly.

The man laughed with disbelief, he could not imagine Andrei giving him orders or Andrei going on a reconnaissance mission in the safe Moscow apartment he imagined Andrei knew back on Earth much less one on Pandora. He also could not believe the Colonel was actually trusting his pet with a mission. "Why do I have to go?" he asked with insubordination in his voice and a look of apathy on his face.

"Corporal, I can choose whom I wish, you seem competent, but bear in mind. I am an officer and you are an enlisted man. You will obey my orders, you will follow my lead, is this clear?"

Andrei could see the man only said "Clear sir" because Andrei had the backing of the Colonel.

"You of course should not hesitate to point out dangers and I shall listen and judge, but I am in charge. You will need to clean your kit for the day after tomorrow. I shall contact you when you and the seven others I will choosing must see me for a..." his mind forgot the English word then found it "briefing. Is this clear?" he demanded.

"Clear sir" the man said resentfully.

Andrei noted to his annoyance the man was doing this bare-chested. "One more thing Corporal. When you go with me into..." again his mind searched for the phrase but could not find it properly "on campaign, we do it respectably. I want to see you wearing a combat shirt in long sleeve order, like I am now, with combat gloves. Clear?"

The corporal was especially resentful but could not refuse an order "Understood sir" he said reluctantly.

"Good" said Andrei, even though he could tell it was not. "Now I must find Private Fike" and walked off. He found Fike unseriously sparring with another man in the ring, with others watching, most of the shirtless, and Andrei once again felt very much not at home amongst all this blatant masculinity. "STOP!" he commanded the men in the ring. Everyone looked at him surprised at having their routine interrupted, many did not know him so they had for the time being a neutral attitude. Fike was grumpy at having his match interrupted. "Private Fike get out of the ring I need to speak with you" commanded Andrei.

Rolling his eyes Fike got out of the ring and walked with Andrei to someplace where no one would pay them attention and then asked "What?" then remembering Andrei's rank added "sir."

"The Colonel wants me to get together a little team for a reconnaissance mission, I have chosen you and Corporal Wainfleet so far. See me tomorrow at midday for a briefing with the Colonel about the mission you will know more then."

"Okay sir" said Fike uncaringly.

Andrei walked off to find more men not bothering yet to tell Fike what he had told Wainfleet.

Andrei managed to pick out two more privates for his crew in the gym, they were those who did wear shirts to their exercise and did not look like thugs. He then went to find more people. He found another three privates at the ranges. He was approached by a female sergeant who he recognized. She was American, of medium build, and had terrible anger management problems. According to bits of talk he had picked up no one would spar with her in the ring, as once she started she was not satisfied until the enemy was a grease spot. He had no intention of showing his terror. "What can I do for you Sergeant?" he asked sternly.

He could tell she did not like him, and was already restraining herself from attacking him. "I heard you're doing a reconnaissance mission LT, I want to join in."

"That's fine by me, report to a briefing to be made by the Colonel on our mission at Midday tomorrow. I will send a circular on the full details tonight to everyone so check yo...."

"Yeah Yeah! I get it sir, I know what I'm doing" she stormed off.

She had just expressed what all the soldiers on his team thought of him. That was eight people he had, and that was enough. Well he had to go ready himself and his kit for the briefing as well as learn up whatever there was to know on Pandora. He also had to find his corporate man, and the thought came to him in a flash.


	10. Chapter 10

_Part 10, where the other sort of Avatar is introduced. Brace yourselves for a bad joke._

"Room Atten-hut!" called out the angry female sergeant whose surname was Rose, perhaps not apt enough, she was pretty, but far more deadly than any rose, Nettle would be a better label for her.

The Colonel walked in along with a youngish, not too plump man wearing a pilot's overalls. "At ease" said the Colonel, and the room relaxed but the sergeant stood at ease, and it was clear to Andrei that the only person on the base she respected was the Colonel. They were in the briefing room, and the room felt very empty, as there was just Andrei, the Colonel, the three other crew members of the Dragon, Captain O'Donnell, and the eight soldiers that Andrei had chosen. The Colonel stood at the front of the room, then looked over the assembled men and said "Andrei I would like you up here with me for this briefing as you are the field commander of this expedition."

"Yes sir" said Andrei and got up to stand at ease on the left hand side of the Colonel avoiding the man hater on the Colonel's left.

Miles Quaritch did not like people to be too focused on drill while he gave briefings "Just relax everybody, make yourselves comfortable and focus on the task at hand." He took a remote control from the table and pointed it at the projector and turned it on. The windows also closed meaning that the light came from the glow from the corridor, and from the projector. On the screen came two maps from orbital imaging. The maps showed the areas in a 50 km radius from the Na'vi hometree, and the entire Hallelujah mountains. "You can tell what these areas are and no doubt Lieutenant Semyonov here" he said gesturing to the nervous young man on his left "will have told you that you are going on recon. I am here to fill you in exactly on what you are doing. Now," he clicked a button on the remote and the dual map screen disappeared to be replaced a full screen map of the area round the Omaticaya hometree "this is the area in a fifty kilometer radius around the Na'vi hometree that is closest to us. We have been in a sort of cold war with the tribe that inhabits it, the Omaticaya, for about twenty years now. Our main exploratory dozers are advancing in that direction and in about eight weeks time will be there. We are hoping the tribe will leave, and this reconnaissance mission is part of that effort. Lieutenant Semyonov here, and by extension, everyone of you are under orders to try and establish peaceful contact with the Natives and let them talk to a human ein who actually represents our interests instead of a some hippie here to bond with nature." Everyone chuckled, but Quaritch did not laugh at his own joke as that would have spoiled it. "However another mission you have of equal importance is to recon the area and map it entirely as well as gather any intel you can on dangerous plants, animal nests, etcetera, so we know about them when this turns messy, got that?" he asked in a voice he hoped was not nasty. No one had any questions. "Then there is this region." He clicked the same button, making the satellite map of the area around hometree disappear to be replaced by the area of the Hallelujah mountains. "We know little about it except that there are large unobtanium deposits in this region, much of it in the mountains themselves. We do not know much else however. The science team provides us little data, and at any rate, they themselves appeared to have properly explored less than one percent of this region. This is the place where flying will be difficult as instruments do not work in the mountains, something called a flux vortex. However, for those of you who have not read Dr. Augustine's book, or stopped before you got to this part because your brains were melting, this is a sacred place to the indigenous. It therefore has significant cultural value, and is likely to be a strongpoint for the enemy. We need to know everything we can about this region, so you will map every square inch of this region, so we know just what we are doing and we can have accurate maps inspite of the flux. Every day I will tell Lieutenant Semyonov where to go. He has my permission to explore whatever part of which region he has been assigned, and Captain O'Donnell" he said turning to the pilot "you will treat Lieutenant Semyonov as if it was me commanding, and go where he says to go. He in turn will respect your expertise as a pilot, and your superior rank, though due to circumstances, you go where he says you go, is that okay?"

Quaritch was relieved when O' Donnell smiled and said "Yep that is okay sir, I understand, I'm just glad I don't have to set foot in the jungle."

"Good now Andrei," he said looking at the nervous officer to his left "What have you to say?"

Andrei kept his serious face as he addressed the assembled soldiers and gunship crew. He reminded Quaritch of himself when he was younger, "Well I'm not going to tell the gunship crew what to do, except to..." Quaritch could see that Andrei's mind was trying to find the appropriate English phrase, but he winced slightly. He knew the others did not hold Andrei in high regard, they thought he was too soft and this was not helping. Andrei kept his eyes closed as and made downward motions with his right hand, concentrating on what he was saying "except to come when I say we need you and to go where we need to go, because we do not want to be in any tight spots for long."

Quaritch noticed one of the Privates sniggering at Andrei and stared him down. Suddenly the private was a lot less cocky.

"As for the soldiers, when you go on a mission with me, no short sleeves, you must where your combat shirts all the way down to your wrists. We are going to look respectable. Another thing no water bottles, but have a full camel back at all times, I don't want to have to stop just so we can drink." Quaritch noted that the soldiers were all grumbling at this, but he, and many other soldiers on the base would be inclined to agree with Andrei. Andrei turned to look at Quaritch again "That is all from me sir."

"Good" said Quaritch and then he turned back to the assembled people and switched off the projector. The lights came back on. "That is all from me. You'll be exploring the area around Hometree tomorrow, so Captain O' Donnell, Lieutenant Semyonov, get planning. Dismissed everybody."

"What about the LT?" Wainfleet asked his friend later.

"Man he is some thin shit that the Colonel likes cause he toadies up to him, let's just do our thing, I guarantee you the Lieutenant will be too chicken to make us to what we are told" responded Fike.

"Maybe not though" said Wainfleet "I mean he may toady to the Colonel but he seems perfectly serious, and seems to have genuine respect for the Chain of command. I mean I too think he's a little worm, but he's been here nearly four years and even though Lieutenant Drummond, nearly lost a Samson to banshees, he defended him from the Colonel. I think if we disobey him, we will answer to the Colonel, and we won't want that."

"Yeah I suppose so, but man I do not want to be ordered around by some desk jockey, who does not know what he is doing."

"Well, we have to be at the Dragon by 0730. This must be real important to the Colonel if he is letting the Lieutenant use his favourite toy."

Andrei Semyonov over heard them and then went back to his room. He made sure that he had all his kit and water filled up. Captain O'Donnell had said that he would bring extra water so they could fill up, and would bring packed lunches. Andrei had told his men to have their choice of meal, as they would be eating on the dragon, not on the forest floor where it was unsafe. Back in his room he put on martial music to instil in himself the will to fight. He listened of course to Soviet military music, but also to North Korean marches, as well as Japanese ones. The emotions flowing from these songs did indeed brace him mentally for what was to come tomorrow, for he did not expect it to be anything good. For the real threat to him was not from the planet, but from his own people, who were on his side. When he was a cadet in school, because people had disliked him, on his own team when they had gone paintballing, people on his own team had shot him in the back, with everyone condemning him for being soft because he cried. The pain did not make him cry though, it was the treachery. What was to say his own team would not dispose of him? He knew it they hated him, they wanted to kill him. It did not matter to them that they were on the same side or that he to was a human being with his own life. He hated them for it, and he wanted to kill them, before they killed him. Well that would not surprise him. He would be dead by their hands, why they wanted to kill him he did not know. He could not understand their mentality, he just did not know, and that made him hate them more.

He fell asleep not knowing where his enemy was, or if even the Colonel was an ally. He cried as fell into sleep, knowing that his parents were probably dead, and he would die unloved, uncared for, so far from home, with everything on the planet either not caring or being glad that he had perished.

On another part of Pandora, someone entirely different in character to Andrei was dreaming. She was Na'vi, a fearsome hunter, fastest of any in the Omaticaya tribe on foot, but not laughed at contemptuously by all in the tribe. Although not all illfavored in looks the men all refused her as a potential mate, the women liked to go after her, to make her feel bad. She was thirteen inches shorter than the average Na'vi female, and as such was not favoured by any. She had tried to get her own Ikran but was overcome by the beast's strength and had nearly lost her life. She remembered the derisive laughs of those waiting to get their Ikran. Tsu'tey, who she had a crush on, though that word was not in the Na'vi vocabulary, the phrase was meaningless love, showed sympathy but it was rife with condescension.

She was even ignored by her parents who were ashamed at having produced a dwarf. She could not turn her anger on her tribe though, or she would be banished and any chance at being accepted destroyed. She especially hated Jake Sully, who being a dreamwalker, seemed to get more attention than she did. At least they were bothering to help him, an enemy of her people learn their ways, no one was helping her overcome the troubles her height brought her.

She hated the Sky people as a way of channelling her anger. They were the only people who could not call her short, they were inferior to her and her people. She hated them. They destroyed their mother piece by piece, burrowing towards her heart trying to find their worthless rock. She did not understand why her people did not fight the sky people. They were not as brave, strong, or skilled as any of her people. They required their cowardly arrows, and metal beasts to even dare face them. She resolved that she would do what Ninat had done as part of her training, kill two people. She would kill them and finally be one of the people, they could not deny her, after she had killed sky people. Her name was Shodan.


	11. Chapter 11

_Part 11_

Andrei was the second to last man to reach the Dragon that morning much to his embarrassment. Everyone but the Helicopter crew was scowling at him. He checked to make sure the safety catch was on his Colt M12 Assault rifle and the reflex sight was aligned properly then he boarded the chopper. One of the Privates, Jones, was last aboard the Chopper. As soon as everyone was aboard Andrei took off his exopack, and went to see Captain O'Donnell, checking to see that his cap was straight on his head. He walked into the Cockpit, the Captain smiled at him "Don't let them get to you buddy, they only showed me respect when I flattened that nest of Thanators about five years ago now. Don't worry these guys won't shoot you in the back. Not with the Colonel backing you."

"Thank you sir" Andrei said, but he did not feel very encouraged by this.

"So if you guys are ready, we're ready. Shall we go?" he asked still keeping that friendly voice.

"Yes, we go now to the place we discussed yesterday" he said.

"Alright then." He then keyed in his comms unit "This is Dragon requesting permission to leave immediately over."

A female voice came over the comm. "This is Hell's Gate tower two, you are cleared for immediate departure Dragon."

"Dragon acknowledges out." He keyed off, and turned to Andrei and smiled "It is as simple as that."

All the rotors on the great beast began shuddering, and whirring, faster and faster. Then before Andrei knew it they were climbing high, and then accelerating to their destination 70 kilometres away. As they went away Andrei decided he would take a Russian weapon tomorrow, and keep rotating. He did not why he decided this, just that he thought it was something he should do.

Shodan had gotten up earlier than most of the village. She had breakfasted, and then set out to go hunting as the Chief had indicated that tonight should be a meat night for the tribe. If she had any hope of ingratiating herself within the tribe she had to be in first with an animal.

The Dragon flew on and as they got near their destination Andrei figured he should stop admiring the natural beauty of Pandora and brief the men on what they were about to do. He stepped back into the main hold of the Dragon where it was large enough to fit 8 AMP mobile suits. Thinking of mobile suits he began singing the _Gundam_ theme music, and stopped when he neared the troops.

They were all talking amongst themselves, friendly, a team. Not quite. There were two outsiders, Andrei, and the angry sergeant who was at one side practising her knife drills. They were excluded for opposite reasons. They thought she was too much of a lean mean killing machine, and he was just some pansy incompetent officer who you could ignore at will.

He motioned with outward fearlessness for the sergeant to stop. She did not stop. He tried again, she did not stop. "Stop your training" he said fiercely.

She did not eve stop for a moment "Go and commit an anatomical impossibility upon yourself sir" she said (well she used more explicit language, but reports were censored for bad language).

He was intimidated. She would kill him without a second thought, she was a violent person, she loved killing for killing. He stuttered as he said "No you will do as I say."

Everyone was watching now, only nervous, not for Andrei's sake but worried that Rose might get so angry she would take them out as well. Andrei looked at them impotently for support, some sign that they were with him. But he was alone. They did not look at him, or looked at him hostilely. He felt like crying. This happened to him every time he was in command. He thought he was in charge, put there by someone because he was judged to be competent. For the soldiers however, it seemed that so many of them would not respect you unless you could take them on any day of the week and win in hand to hand combat. The difference was is that he had no shoulder to cry on, no friends, exceed maybe the Colonel but he was his superior. He was truly alone.

"Do as I say" he said softly.

She advanced right into his face pushed him and then grabbed his shirt with her left hand and held a knife to him with her right. Andrei did start to cry, not from fear, but from rage. She was supposed to be on his side, she was supposed to be his subordinate, why was she doing this? "Listen here wimp, we are only here because the Colonel told us to be here. I'm in charge of this mission, I have more experience than you and am a better warrior than you could ever hope to be. So you just do as you're told and you'll live Lieutenant, got that?"

For reasons Andrei could not fathom, when faced with danger like this, instead of begging and pleading, he became more courageous. His intellect allowed him to do that. He knew that they were not humane and would not listen to reason. They were tyrants, and he must give no quarter. Yet his voice when it came did not reflect his convictions or courage as he was weeping and blubbered "No you will do as I say, I'm in charge, the Colonel..."

A fist slammed into his gut, and he stopped speaking and slumped to the metal. He cried uncontrollably now. Not from the pain, but from impotent rage. Why was she doing this to him, why would she do this to someone on her own side, to a human being for that matter. He hated her, he knew her type, she thought of herself as the sole human being. He was not human, he did not have hopes, feelings, ambitions like her, he was weak, he was nothing.

"The Colonel ain't here butt face, you will do as I say or you will pay. That goes for all of you got it?" she demanded sternly. All the other men nodded. She kicked him for good measure and left him there to sob.

He sobbed as she took over his briefing with more aggression and charisma than he ever could have done it with his briefing. He sobbed at the fact that yet again, he had been cheated of something he had a right to by a more assertive person. But no, he suddenly found strength again. He was not nothing. He was Andrei Aleksandrovich Semyonov, he was an officer, they would do as he said. No matter the cost.

Sergeant Rose still gave the briefing to them, stealing his command from him. They would drop down 25km south south-west of Hometree and do a reconnaissance across a 2km radius from their Landing Zone, and do their best not to fire or engage any potential hostile plant or animal life.

Andrei now prepared to do something he had always wanted to do to the people who had dared to defy him, simply because he was physically weaker than them, and questioned him because he made slight errors. He had nothing to lose. He pulled out the Mosin-Nagant revolver which his family had kept since one of his now quite distant great-Grandfather's had been a Chekist. The pistol was already cocked. He took the safety catch off and pointed it at sergeant Rose. No one paid any attention to him. He was still sat down, and no one ever expected people like him to fight back. The strong brushed the weak aside, and the other strong always applauded. The weak either applauded or did nothing. The victim was the victim, a loser, a nobody, a nothing. Not today. He fired one shot at her posterior.

It hit sergeant Rose right in the seat of her pants. At first it seemed to shock her then she screamed with rage and pain. She spun round, enraged that he had dared to defy her, to fight back. She also had a look of bewilderment on her face, people like him were supposed to do as they were told. All the men were amazed at what he had done, but afraid that once she was done with Andrei she would come for them. Andrei cocked his weapon again. She charged at him with the intent to kill. He however had no such intention he was better than her. He fired again and hit her in the flank. She dropped this time, clutching her wound. He did not hesitate he was up, and kicked her in the face, and did not stop, kicking and kicking over and over. Then he was on top of her punching her with all of his hate energy, slamming her head against the deck, until at last he felt himself heaved off of her by someone.

He looked up to see Captain O'Donnell looking aghast "Jesus Lieutenant what happened, why did you..."

Corporal Wainfleet began to explain with deliberate inaccuracy "Well you see sir, when the lieutenant came in to give us our briefing he asked sergeant Rose there to stop training. When she asked for a few more moments to finish he slapped her and told her..."

Not today, not again "Shut your mouth!" commanded Andrei. "That is not what happened at all sir" he said without looking at Captain O'Donnell, check the internal cameras, and the voice log, you will see that I merely took appropriate punitive measures." Ignoring the Captain, not out of disrespect by of recognition of the need to press on, and show the mission came first he said "In the meantime Sergeant Rose has briefed you." He had not fully recovered his composure. He made his pistol safe, put his cap back on and continued talking. "Right so we will touch down soon, everyone be ready. As for this..." he said gesturing to the unconscious body of Sergeant Rose, and looking at Captain O'Donnell "I suggest you get it back to base. It needs to have it's wounds healed."

The Captain was visibly shaken by this infighting and said "Alright then Lieutenant, we will be back for you guys, don't worry."

"Sir, if anything happens to me, you will know it was them and not Pandora" said Andrei, and then went off to collect his equipment.

Andrei need not have worried. After that demonstration of his will, taking down a soldier widely considered to be the baddest woman on Pandora, all members of the squad respected Andrei, and feared him. They now knew that he was not weak in moral fortitude, and was absolutely dedicated to his job. Corporal Wainfleet spoke for them all when he said "You guys, I think its best if we never piss the LT off." They all nodded in agreement with this.

Five minutes later, the Dragon set itself down but did not stop its engines. Theywere in one of a few clearings, where they could safely set down. Andrei wanted to go easy on his first day. He had done simulators plenty of times, but had never actually been outside of Hell's Gate itself, except on a three day field tour with a dozer, but the most he had done was shoot a viperwolf that had stupidly thought it could take on so many humans. All the people on the expedition, it was grandiose, but Andrei could think no better word, that it was extraordinarily boring for Pandora. Mind you as a soldier a boring operation is good, it means no one was killed or hurt. In any case he could not have handled roping down after having done what he had done. He felt sorry for himself, and cared only for the pain he had suffered. He normally would have thought of the person he had hurt, but he knew she would have killed him without the slightest feeling of guilt. To him she was not human she was an it.

Wordlessly he ran off with his men following him and fanning out fifty meters from the helicopter. "We're good to go Dragon" said Andrei "See you seen sir."

"Yes see you soon Andrei" said Captain O Donnell and with that the Dragon took off.

"Alright men" said Andrei "Fan out in an extended line, and lets patrol forward 2,000 meters. Is everyone's imaging scanners on?" he asked referring to the equipment they had round their hats, which contained a small camera that scanned everything and saved it in a memory chip within itself while at the same time trying to transmit things back to base over a wireless network. They advanced, with Andrei reminding them to keep their spacing, and to be real professional in their patrolling look up everywhere and anywhere, as well as checking behind them.

In the meantime while all this had been happening Shodan had caught nothing. She had stalked a Yerik for an hour, had the one chance to kill it and missed. She knew she had lost any chance of impressing the tribe and had sat down to weep in distress. She was going to die alone, unloved and uncared for.

Her moping was cut short by a warbling in the air that could mean only one thing. Sky people were coming. She grabbed her bow and hastened to the sound. What she eventually saw initially awed her. It was a large green metal beast, far bigger than the ones the Sky people normally had. It had for enormous spinning blades, and many cowardly arrows on it. As well as things that were reputed to shoot fire and burning metal, but she could not believe the Sky people to be so powerful. She immediately began climbing a tree amazed by the wind its approach created, it destroyed little bits of the mother, ripping blades of grass from the ground and leaves. She eventually got into a good place where she could observe Sky warriors departing from their metal beast each with cowardly arrows and their masks on. She saw one of them make motions with its hand, and all the others comply with its instructions. That must be their leader, the one to target first. Yes that was what she would do, kill all these sky people or die trying.

Andrei kept walking and scanning everything, looking behind him, and occasionally saying "Spread out more" or "eyes up." His own advice was well heeded, as on one occasion when he looked up he saw a Na'vi aiming an arrow an arrow at him. He immediately sprinted and fired in her general direction, then hit the dirt. By the time he was taking aimed shots, the Na'vi was running, and the rest of his squad was firing as well. They ceased fire when the Na'vi disappeared from view.

Shodan cried with rage. She could not even beat those whom she looked down on and despised the most, the sky people. Doubtless the noise from the cowardly arrows would be heard by other Omaticaya and eventually she would be discovered and disgraced. As a dwarf the consequences would be extraordinarily dire as she would lose what little respect she had, it would be the end exile. She knew what she had to do. She had run off initially but no more. She would go back and offer herself as a target for the Sky people to kill. That way she could leave this existence and go to a better one, with Eywa.


	12. Chapter 12

_Part 12, the meeting_

Andrei and his men continued forward into the forest towards whoever had shot at them, and was probably lying in wait just a bit up ahead. Know patrolling was exhausting, and Andrei felt like he wanted to sleep as this activity demanded too much energy. He drank some water from his camelback and continued on patrolling forward, issuing the usual reminders.

He felt like calling a halt it had only been a mile, just another four hundred yards to go, but it felt like too much, too much pressure, too much danger, so far from home, so far from what he knew, and without anyone to love him.

Suddenly there was rustling ahead of them, the unmistakeable sound of running and it was getting closer. 'It must be a viperwolf or several of them' thought Andrei, the Na'vi were too subtle to charge in like that. He was wrong. The Na'vi that shot at them came into view, and as soon as it did it stopped, dropped its bow, and unsheathed its knife then dropped that, then walked forward. Andrei in the meantime was amazed that he and his men had held their fire instead of gunning it down.

As it came closer Andrei saw it was a female, and had a look of despair on its face. It came closer and closer, until at about thirty meters, an anxious private Fike shouted "Freeze! I will gun you down! Don't come any closer!"

The Na'vi looked emotionless and like someone who had lost the point of life. "Kill me" she said in heavily accented English.

Andrei was intrigued but still wary. Here was a Na'vi offering herself to their bullets, it was unfathomable. From what he had heard they had never done this. He looked to his men, all more experienced than him in combat on Pandora. They all looked uncertain, and were actually looking at him for instructions. He had none.

The Na'vi became more desperate "I am the one that you shot at, I tried to kill you. Kill me!" she pleaded.

Andrei looked at her with intrigue and mistrust, but someone had to be the goodguy here. He lowered his rifle and said "No."

She looked almost panicked "Kill me!"

"What do we do Lieutenant?" asked Corporal Wainfleet with hard professionalism.

Andrei looked at her with mistrust and wondered why it was she was doing this, so he tried to break the ice. He noticed that she was a bit on the short side for a Na'vi. She was easily three feet taller than him, more than two feet taller than the tallest man among them. "A bit short for a Na'vi aren't you?" he inquired.

At this the Na'vi first had a look of pained disbelief and then broke down crying and muttering in her own language. She was sobbing uncontrollably, and she started lapping herself, the look of self loathing was unmistakeable. "Why the hell are you doing that?!" demanded Andrei irritably. She was holding them up. She just continued sobbing, and sobbing. Andrei had had enough "Well my men, if she wants to cry we are not here to help her, let's go."

They began moving forward when the Na'vi exclaimed "You are sky person, you would not understand."

Andrei gave the signal to halt, he was intrigued "Understand what exactly?"

She sobbed some more before answering "I'm a dwarf" she declared.

Andrei could not quite understand. Maybe by Na'vi standards she was short, but with his human mind it was impossible for him to perceive how anyone could see her as short. In any case, according to Doctor Augustine and the scientists the Na'vi looked out for their people and tried to help them overcome their difficulties and did not show prejudice to other tribes, or among each other, but looked only at what was inside of a person. Thus when a Na'vi said "I see you" it usually meant that they were saying they saw what was inside of you, not outside. Or did they? The appearance of this Na'vi and she calling herself a dwarf indicated to Andrei that Doctor Augustine would have to edit her book. "What do you mean a dwarf? I thought your society wasn't prejudiced."

She was silent for a bit as she controlled her sobbing, then she smiled bitterly "Is that what the sky people have been told, we aren't prejudiced to each other?"

Andrei felt stupid now and looked at his men, and he could see that they too felt stupid and bit naive for having actually fallen for the Augustinian line. There always had to be trouble in paradise. "Well yes, we thought you all looked out for each other in order to be in harmony with the forest." Andrei was aware of how stupid and hippie like that sounded "Or something like that" he said stupidly. He put his forefinger and thumb instinctively toward his chin, until they met the plexiglass of the exopack to his annoyance. He began to think, what exactly he wasn't sure, but this was something he was not prepared for.

She tried to laugh but instead sobbed some more "You sky people are more blind than I thought. Killing our mother for some worthless rock and ignoring either killing us, or when you do learn of us, seeing what you wish to see. Your race disgusts me." She spat this last sentence defiantly.

Andrei could not care in the least, she had just voiced the opinion of her race, why should he care? "I can see you know nothing about us then. That _rock_" he mocked "is worth more to us than you can imagine. I think it is you people who only see what they want to see."

She looked at him, stern and certain, yet uncertain as well. "Go on then, if you won't kill me do what you were doing. I won't stop you."

Andrei looked at her uncertainly, he did not trust her, she had already tried to kill them once by her own confession. He thought about what needed to be done, and then whispered into the squad intercom "Squad thirty paces to the left, march!" After heatring this command, each man, Andrei included, walked thirty paces to their left, so they would all walk straight past the Na'vi. "Alright let's go" said Andrei when they were in position. They resumed their patrol being extremely careful until the Na'vi was out of their sight. By the time that had happened it was time for them to change direction to continue exploring. It was not even midday yet.

Shodan in the meantime let them go, there was nothing else she could see she could do. She found the idea of killing those sky people after having just talked to them impossible to do. She just let them go and thought about what the human hunting party leader had said. It was true she thought, her people assumed about the sky people other than the one known as Grace and those who came with her. They had never tried speaking to warrior or worker Sky people. What little they knew of the two came from the one called Grace, whom she supposed was not exactly objective on the subject as the ones with Grace, and those not always seemed to be in argument, according to Grace and those with her that was. She wondered if she should follow them to ask them more questions, she might not have another chance to speak to warrior sky people. She could always try and speak to Jake Sully but she would probably not be allowed. In any case he said that he was a warrior. The Sky men, for she could see no women, she had just met were all warriors, and they seemed more typical of the Sky people. She wanted to speak to them but decided against it, they would not want to be pestered. In the meantime she had to kill something for the meal tonight, and not bother the Sky people.

"Sir" said the female officer who was always in the administration tower, and to Quaritch's shame he still had not bothered to learn her name, just her rank.

"What is it Lieutenant?" he said without looking up from the dossier he was reading.

"The Dragon has returned sir" she said.

Quaritch was shocked, it was far too early, and he knew Andrei would not disobey orders and be a coward. "Why have they returned?" he asked setting the dossier down on the nearest desk and walking over to the officer.

"Dragon why have you returned so early, over?" she asked. There was a pause as she listened to the response. "They have a casualty sir, Lieutenant Semyonov gave them orders to drop off the casualty and then return to the LZ."

Quaritch thought about what to do. He decided quickly "I'll go out to Captain O'Donnell make sure a medical team is waiting for the dragon ready to get the casualty to med bay stat! Got that?" he asked.

"Yes sir" she said, and began fulfilling her instructions as he walked out of the administration tower with purpose.

As he reached the airlock, he noted with slight pleasure that a stretcher team was already there ahead of him. He grabbed an exopack, put it on, activated it, then stepped outside. He left the door open as he knew the med team would have to go in and out as quickly as possible. He ran towards the chopper. He wondered what had gone wrong so quickly that Andrei had had a casualty, but then again things often went wrong on Pandora. When he got to the Dragon they had collected the casualty. To his surprise, which was by no means pleasant he saw it was Sergeant Rose. He thought of asking the medics what was wrong, but knew it would be futile, and it would delay them, and he could see she was in a really bad state. He did not think she would live. He ran inside the chopper looking for Captain O'Donnell. He found the Captain standing in the holding bay, standing there, exopack on, waiting for him. The fact that this was so, with the Captain staring straight at him was slightly unnerving, but Quaritch had been in too many wars to be truly unnerved by this, he was merely curious. "Captain! What happened to Sergeant Rose?" he asked.

The Captain sighed "Sir, I think you'd better come and take a look."

Quaritch hesitated for half a second, but his curiousity had been whetted. However if the Captain wanted him to have a look it could mean only thing. It had happened on the chopper, one of the others on the team had done that to her. But which one? He was trying to avoid the answer but as Captain O'Donnell showed him the recording from the camera, complete with audio, there could be no doubt as to who was guilty. "Andrei" Quaritch breathed. That was the only insecurity he showed, he turned to Captain O' Donnell and said "Well you'd better get back out there Captain, Lieutenant Semyonov will be waiting for you."

He heard the other man say "Yes sir" as he walked off the Dragon and back to the base. For once he was well and truly uncertain as to what to do. When he got back to his office, he sat down heavily in the chair, and thought for half an hour. Still he did not know what to do. He went to go to do some exercise hoping that would clear his head. It did not he did not know what he should do. Should he punish Andrei for doing that, and not letting Sergeant Rose be disciplined in the conventional way? Or should he, considering the bullying he knew Andrei endured, and the personality of Sergeant Rose, and what he had heard her say from the camera recordings, pretend the whole thing never happened? He showered, and then even went to take a nap. When he awoke he still could not think what to do.

The phone rang, he knew who it was before he even picked it up "Where are you Miles and what have you been doing?" asked administrator Selfridge "I just got a complaint from Major Darwin that you have been inattentive to your duties. I thought I should try and contact you personally since this is as rare an occurrence as the Pope denying the existence of God in public."

Selfridge paused as he obviously intended for Quaritch to answer so Quaritch did "It's a personal matter sir, something that affects me very deeply."

"I find it very hard to believe that this could possibly be Augustine Colonel, so who is it?" the administrator asked with that semi-playful voice of his.

"Well its the case of the casualty on the Dragon sir, and the officer commanding that expedition you approved of two days ago. It would appear that the casualty, a Sergeant with a serious anger management problem, attempted to wrest control from Lieutenant Semyonov, and assaulted him as a means of asserting her authority. He retaliated most violently, far more violently than I ever would have expected, I don't think she will live" said Quaritch.

Even the administrator was lost for words and when he spoke he was no longer playful. "Let me worry about this Colonel, you just worry about keeping all of us safe and the cash flowing I will worry about Lieutenant Semyonov and any action we make take against him." The man on the other end paused and then said "You're taking this very personally Colonel, almost as if you had to punish your own son" he said.

"That is exactly how it is for me sir, Andrei is like a son to me."

Meanwhile back in the Pandoran jungle, Andrei and his team had finished sweeping an 8km2 region. It had been horribly exhausting. The Dragon had been late, arriving at 1330. He had ordered the men back to the LZ, ordered them to eat lunch and then they had gone back out again after lunch and resupply. It had taken them another four hours to cover another 6km2 of terrain to map as they had to walk two kilometres in the same direction they had gone previously. Next time Andrei resolved they would rappel down from the Dragon to where he needed to go instead of trudging there. That was, he reflected as he got back in the Dragon for the trip back to base, if there was a next time for him. What he had done probably would not be tolerated by anybody, especially the Colonel. He tried to feel regret for what he had done, but he could not. He decided he would stand by his actions even if he was told it was completely wrong, it was something that had to be done.

Quaritch had gone back to his duties immediately after the conversation with Selfridge and amazingly had managed to forget the issue with Andrei, mostly. It had come flooding back to him when the intercom on his desk beeped and he answered it. "Yes?" he demanded.

"Colonel, this is Doctor Kreuzmann in Medical Bay, we have stabilized Sergeant Rose for now, but we still don't know if she will live, she has got remarkable will though, she is putting up a good fight."

Quaritch swallowed "Thank you Doctor please keep me posted." He then signed off, only to have the intercom beep very shortly thereafter. "Colonel Quaritch" he said.

The female officer from the tower came in "Sir the Dragon has returned sir." The floodgates opened, and he suddenly was unsure of what to do. "Thank you Lieutenant, I'll get on it." He signed off, but instead of doing what he thought he would be doing at this time yesterday, he stayed seated and worried about what exactly to do. Simply debrief Andrei and pretend nothing had happened? Debrief him then talk to him, and be harsh or understanding? It was very difficult.

Shodan had killed a Yerik and brought it back to Hometree very shortly after her encounter with the Sky people. As she had expected no one had been very impressed. "You are the sixth hunter back here Shodan" the chief, Eytukan had said acidly. She had accepted the criticism for her slowness and the need to be much faster if she hoped to be accepted as being one of the people. She now felt a bit less strong in her resolve on all things after meeting the Sky people, especially her unquestioning hatred of them, nad her desire to become one of the people.


	13. Chapter 13

_Part 13, Stalemate_, _because it is one of those points you get to in a story where you kind of run out of ideas but you need to keep going anyway._

Colonel Miles Quaritch knew what he had to do eventually. He would debrief Andrei and put on warning that he may shortly face punitive measures. So he stood up and walked out wearing that all too familiar serious face, it was the appropriate one for this situation, and he knew that Andrei would be expecting it, but how he would handle it was different. He wanted to discipline Andrei, and make him afraid by words alone, to remind him of correct procedure. At the same time he did not want to destroy the young man's faith, and believe that everyone was against him. He reminded Quaritch so much of himself when he was younger.

When he go to the briefing room, he saw a tired, gloomy faced Andrei, looking at him with eyes that hoped for support. When he saw Quaritch's expression, Quaritch observed the hope for support go, to be replaced by resignation. He knew what was coming and was bracing himself, with the air of someone about to say 'time to face the music.' Quaritch sat opposite him and looked him over, outside the light was fading "I know what happened Andrei, I saw it all."

There was silence for about half a minute, then Andrei looked at him. It told Quaritch that he had no regrets. "I do not see what else I could have done sir. It just had to be done, I could not let her get away with it. She had to be stopped or she would have gone more extreme. I just did to her what she would have done to me. You can shoot me, literally for all I care, but I would do it again."

Quaritch kept his voice level and serious, he was not angry, but actually felt sort of numb. "You realize that if she dies, you will be sent home, and face a court martial with probably some of the harshest conditions possible. You went too far."

Andrei looked at him piercingly. Quaritch saw a Killer intensity he so rarely saw from Andrei. "In my position, with my strength, what would you have done sir?" he asked.

Quaritch knew he did not have to answer, but all humans being equal, he owed the young man an answer, especially someone of Andrei's intelligence and background. He thought, he knew the answer immediately but was unsure if he should say it, doge the question, or say something that was counterfactual. In the end he decided to tell the truth. "I would have done exactly what you did Lieutenant."

Andrei nodded "I know it does not make it right sir, I know you will not protect me, but I am very happy that you understand."

"Yes Andrei, all of what you just said is true. I understand more than you know." There was an awkward pause. "I see from the raw data that you scanned only 14km2. I'm not asking you to increase the pace. I'm not unrealistic, but meet your quotas, we can't afford blindspots, okay?" he still said calmly.

"Yes sir I understand, I have analyzed my actions and fingered the weaknesses. The terrain was not the most interesting thing that happened sir, we had an odd encounter with a native."

Quaritch was intrigued, "Really? What happened?"

"Well at first she tried to kill us, but failed. She ran away, then came back begging for us to kill her."

Andrei had paused because he expected Quaritch to ask a question, so Quaritch indulged him "Why would she do that Lieutenant? In all my years here they have never offered themselves up for target practice."

"Well the reason appeared to be that because she was fifteen inches shorter than the average native, she suffered great prejudice as a 'dwarf' in her tribe. She also said that the natives only knew things from what Doctor Augustine tells them and their own prejudices, which are basically the same thing. She nor any other natives did not bother us for the rest of the day, so that is a relief."

Quaritch smiled "It is good to hear that there is trouble in paradise, and that the blue people are not living such a pure form of life. Well done Andrei. If you can meet this savage again, talk to her. It would be good to get a malcontent's perspective on their tribe. Tomorrow you are exploring the Hallelujah mountain region and remember, there you can use the dragon to scan things that you cannot do on the ground." He stood up then looked back at him and spoke, still levelly but with a serious face "Andrei you are in charge, unless Sergeant Rose dies or is in some way paralyzed. So you have been warned." He then walked out leaving Andrei sitting there, moping.

Parker Selfridge in the meantime had been trying to calculate the amount of unobtanium they had shipped out, on the most recent shuttle. The next one was due in three months exactly. They had shipped out on the _Venture Star_ 10,000 kilos of refined unobtanium which was worth 400 billion dollars if he was calculating correctly. What he also knew is that the cost of this operation was easily 250 billion per year. To make matters worse he had heard that the scientists left behind by Doctor Augustine were refusing to do missions with the bulldozer teams, as that was destroying nature. Another problem was that a miner had been badly injured today by a machine, and would probably be getting a prosthetic left hand, as well as the fact that headquarters was pressing him to get more unobtanium and cut costs even though he told them that it was impossible. The one thing that alleviated his headaches was Colonel Quaritch, and his excellent performance as head of security. So needless to say Quaritch becoming distracted by a personal affair that badly was not comforting to him. He sighed, and decided to stop worrying and go to bed, and instead think about the 4th of July celebrations. It would be a holiday, and he always had it so that those, who missed those celebrations because of work there was a July 14th celebration. After all the two celebrations were on and the same, spiritually that was. As he turned out the lights on his bedside lamp, feeling lonely because of the absence of a wife, he muttered "Another day in my life."

Andrei had sat there in the briefing room numb for ten minutes. He had not even been thinking, he was just there. He just breathed, stared at the floor and did not have a conscious thought, only his exhaustion. He did get up then and go clean his weapon, and boots, and person, then go to bed. Whilst doing all of these things he thought about what the Colonel had said and felt guilty about what he had done to Sergeant Rose. He felt guilty not because he was sorry, but because he could get in trouble. Well tomorrow was another day.

The next day he was at the Dragon in the same order as he had been, except with an AK-200. He had resolved he would bring a Russian weapon after all. The men did not sneer at him as they had yesterday, they were afraid of him now. He did not want that however, he wanted them to follow him out of trust not fear but it was something that could not be helped. The Dragon again lifted up and headed out this time on a different bearing, it was cloudy over Hell's Gate but not the mountains, that was good. He aimed to cover as much as he could in the Dragon, there were all sorts of hostile predators in the mountains and he did not fancy offering himself or any of his men as a meal to them.

Shodan awoke to another day. The prospect of having another day as a dwarf among the tribe was not appealing to her, but then again her dreams had not been appealing either. In them she saw Jake Sully and Ney'tiri kissing before Tsu'tey's eyes in a barren landscape, burned by the sky people, by Jake, but still Ney'tiri kissed him passionately. Around her lay the corpses of all the tribe. She could see the Sky people, advancing in a long green line. So short, and feeble were they, and yet, she mused, so powerful. As they came closer she could see the different colors on their clothes set out in such perfect patterns as to be too perfect. They all marched forward, expressionless, all placing the same foot forward at the same time, and their faces obscured by their masks. Only one stood out among the crowd, the sky man hunting party leader she had met. He looked at her with hatred, and mistrust. She heard him say something but she could not tell what. She knew that the sky people all then pointed their cowardly arrows at her and the arrows came. They still advanced, but did not get closer, and none of their arrows hit, but neither did they seem to care. She turned to Tsu'tey who was crying not for the dead around him, and the murdered mother, but because his woman had been stolen from him. SHodan touched his arm and said "Tsu'tey, she abandoned you, let it go, she was unfaithful, she mated with a false body demon."

He ignored her and just wept looking at them "How could you Ney'tiri with that devil?" he asked indignantly. Neytiri flashed him a sexually vicious look, designed to make Tsu'tey jealous and continued kissing Jake.

"She abandoned you. The sky people are coming, she betrayed her people. Come with me Tsu'tey, I love you and I will be faithful" she said, being far braver than would ever be in a such a situation if she were awake.

He did not look at her "The people are dead, the mother is dead, and she mated with him. I will die against the Sky people, the last true Na'vi."

Suddenly the sky people's cowardly arrows ripped through him and he fell, scarlet blood coming forth from is lifeless body, and still Jake and Ney'tiri kissed. She wept, not so much because Tsu'tey was dead, but because even when she was the last one left, she was still not true Na'vi, not worthy of his attention, she was still nothing, even when he had nothing. Suddenly the line of small green clothed men were upon her. She looked down at them tears in her eyes, to see the Sky people hunting party leader looking at her coldly, without a trace of compassion or sympathy. He spoke plainly "You're already in hell, let me send you to Eywa, maybe things will be better there." He then aimed his cowardly bow at her, and killed her with his arrows. As she died, he kicked her and then he and the other Sky warriors walked off giving congratulations to Jake and Ney'tiri. She felt the soil take her in, towards Eywa. Maybe Eywa would accept her, but she never found the answer, as she woke up.

She spent the rest of the day walking around aimlessly, hoping to hear the approach of the metal beast that had brought the Sky warriors. She wanted to talk to them again, at least they had been willing to listen.


	14. Chapter 14

_Part 14_

Andrei saw the clouds that veiled the mountains. Outside of the flux, there were a few floating mountains, and he was amazed by them, having never seen them. He admired their beauty, their wonder. As they neared the cloud veil, he noticed Captain O'Donnell become more tense. The older man said "Switching to manual flight mode." He also slowed down.

Andrei leant over, and in a respectful voice asked "Have you ever flown here before sir?"

"No Lieutenant I have not and that makes me nervous especially since our instruments won't work in the flux vortex. I would also appreciate if you watch passively, as I do not wish to crash or even damage this chopper Lieutenant" when he said this he sounded as if he was performing great physical labor, even though he was not.

Andrei immediately backed away and said "I'm sorry sir, of course." He let the Captain do his job and instinctively tucked in his stomach as they entered the cloud veil and visibility was reduced to ten meters, as if he doing that would make the helicopter smaller and less likely to crash. There was an anxious quarter of a minute as they passed through the veil, and then relief, with everyone exhaling as they passed into the open mountains, and looking upon a spectacularly beautiful sight.

Above and ahead of them were mountains. All of them were floating were floating in the air. From there he could see trees and bushes, with waterfalls from the top cascading down into mists as they neared. The mountains themselves were of natural irregular shapes, each its own ecosystem. He could see some vines hanging from some. What was spectacular however was to look down and see the forest floor so far below, just looking like some insignificant layer of grass from up here, its beauty and majesty nothing compared to these mountains.

However they had a mission and Andrei was puzzled as to where to start, however he had to think of something. "Alright Captain, sorry I did not say this before, but we will do it this way." The Captain nodded to indicate he was listening, "Right so, select any floating mountain you want, and I want you to fly around it and scan it, with the helicopter's instruments. Then I want you to land my team on top of the same one we've been scanning and we will try and explore as far down as we can without falling. When we're down we'll signal that we want you to pick us up. This will probably involving you doing some parking, as it where it the Chopper as we'll want to go on from the back ramp probably."

"Okay Lieutenant that sounds like a viable plan to me, I'll pick a mountain for you" he said, and changed the course of the chopper by about 30 degrees to the right, and headed for a mountain that was large and looked almost square. They flew towards it and as they did O'Donnell spoke "men turn on the visual scanning instruments."

Andrei heard "Roger that" from the rest of the crew.

A few seconds later O'Donnell said "Okay, we're receiving data." They flew straight toward the mountain and hovered when they were about 100 meters from it. The Captain O'Donnell raised the gunship up slowly allowing for scans to be made carefully they must have had to climb 1000 feet before they were over the top of the mountain. Then the Captain slowly guided the gunship forward scanning the top then as they went passed the mountain and it disappeared from view, the Captain slowed again and turned the helicopter around to scan the other side. This process was repeated for the other two sides, and Andrei was amazed it only took thirty two minutes to complete. "So Lieutenant if you're ready we'll drop you and your boys off" said the Captain.

"Yes sir we're ready" said Andrei making sure his cap was on straight. He then walked back to the hold where the men were talking. He grabbed his rifle, making sure the safety was on. "Alright men!" he declared and they immediately stopped talking "We will go down onto this mountain scan the top and then try and find a safe way down, if we can't, then Captain O'Donnell will come for us. If we find a way then we will do a lot of exploring, until we can no longer go down, in which case the Dragon will pick us up. We won't go down jumps, if the outside scans have showed no definite way out, is this clear?"

"Yes sir" they answered unenthusiastically.

"Good get your stuff." He grabbed made sure he had his exopack and then keyed in his com "How long to touch down Captain?"

"We're in position now just say the word and we'll lower the hatch, you boys will have to rappel down about thirty feet though, okay?" he asked.

"Yes sir, I will tell the men." He turned to them and said "Get into position to rappel down to the top."

They nodded in acknowledgement, and along with Andrei moved into position and grabbed the ropes that had suddenly descended. Andrei checked that he and everyone was wearing gloves, or this would be very painful. He then put his exopack on and made sure it was secured. The hatch on both sides of the gunship opened and Andrei saw leaves being ripped from trees by the immense wind the gunship kicked up in its wake. "Alright you boys can go now" said Captain O'Donnell.

Andrei grabbed hold of the rope as tight as he could and looped his legs around it as tightly as he could and said over the comm. "In your own time men." They were all out before him with him descending more cautiously. When he was down on the ground amongst the trees he said "We're landed now sir, you can close the hatch and retract the ropes."

"Acknowledged" said the Captain, and the ropes retracted lightning quick, then the hatch closed and the gunship took off. Andrei turned to the men "let's do this in extended line, and just walk forward, radio in when you've reached the edge, then we will about turn, and do it again, and so on until this entire mountain top is covered. Please look out for viable ways to the bottom. Alright let's go."

They did as they were told silently, still unenthusiastic about being under his command. They spread out to ten meter spacings not enough to cover the mountain so Andrei said "Extend out to twenty meters so we can cover most of the mountain top, let's get this done quickly, I don't like the idea of any us being a banshee meal."

They sullenly did as they were told and they marched forward. It took them forty minutes to scan the entire mountain top, all the while without a banshee in sight. Andrei wondered of the roar of the Dragon kept them away. While they had scanned the top one of the privates, a private Collins had spotted a wide path, leading down the mountain, since it had a breadth of five meters Andrei felt it was safe enough to take and radioed this in to Captain O'Donnell. "Can you tell me where the path leads sir?" asked Andrei.

"Yes Lieutenant it leads to a cave entrance, but you have to descend one hundred feet."

"That's alright sir, since I suspect we'll take at least an hour, I would suggest that you scan the outside of another mountain or two so we can save time that way."

"That's sounds like a good idea to me Lieutenant. Don't worry we'll stay local, stay safe."

As O'Donnell keyed off, Andrei heard the Dragon engines rev up a bit more then start to fade. "Alright men let's go down the mountain and explore the cave, move out. When we get to the path you are on point Private Fike."

"Yes sir" said Fike without the slightest hint of enthusiasm. Well at least they listened to him now, which was an improvement. They moved towards the pathway, and when they reached it Fike nervously eased himself onto it and then moved onto the left of the pathway, so he far away from the edge. Even though they had plenty of room for error it was a wise policy. Andrei went last keeping to the wall, but since they had enough space they walked quickly and it was not long before they were at the entrance to the cave, moving inside looking around inside it. Andrei noted it was about three meters wide. It was very regular, but damp on the surface, and he saw moss. Then it became irregular and when he put his foot down as h walked forward his nervous system told him it would be at an angle and that he should be careful or he could stumble.

They went down further, and the ceiling got higher instead of narrower, stalactites began to appear getting larger ,and larger. The same time the lack of wildlife of anything but their steps, with no chatter, no Na'vi it was too perfectly quiet. Outside the winds of the mountains blew. Andrei tried to radio in Captain O'Donnell "Sir are reading in over?" He waited half a minute.

The sound of the Captain's voice was a relief "This is Captain O'Donnell, you have a problem Lieutenant?" he asked.

"No sir just making sure we were not cut off from you, out." Now the cave began to get wider, he could hear a gentle trickle of a what sounded like a brook nearby. They finally came to something as the entire group halted.

"Uh sir" said Private Fike "There is a stream here which leads to the open air, and it goes back into the mountain. Do you want to explore in that direction?"

"Yes, okay, let's do that!" shouted Andrei. He did not have to remind anyone to watch their footing. The stream went back about two hundred feet, before it started to curve steadily upwards, so there must be some sort of reservoir of water in the mountain that came from rain, but that was of no relevance. "Captain O'Donnell, come in over" said Andrei.

"This is O'Donnell go ahead Lieutenant."

"Sir we've finished scanning the interior of the mountain, nothing more to report, we'd like pickup at the point where the stream leaves the mountain, please confirm you know of where I speak, over."

"Yep I got that Lieutenant, see you boys there. We've finished scanning the outside of another two mountains. We'll drop you boys off, and we can hopefully have done four by lunchtime."

In five minutes the Dragon had come round, then it took another three for it to get itself into a perfect position whereby Andrei and his men could safely get onto it from the mouth of the cave and back into the helicopter. They all clambered on Andrei going last and being careful, not because of the fall, but because someone may push him. Just because they feared him, maybe, did not mean they respected him enough not to kill him. He did make it safely on the helicopter and ran into it so that they would have to push him at least ten meters before they killed him. He took the exopack off of his face, and went to the cockpit as the Dragon pulled away from the first mountain. He drank some water as Captain O'Donnell turned to face him.

"Where to next Lieutenant?" he asked.

"Well you have scanned the mountains sir, you decide and we will go exploring" Andrei replied.

Colonel Miles Quaritch had finished issuing orders for the following week, as well as General instructions as to who was to be on field duty, and who should come back to base. He had also filed yet another requisition form for more ammunition, it was less than last week's. He also had viewed the reports Jake had sent him, nothing much new except some more things on how the Na'vi were trained and their culture. By doing this as well as training he had managed to blot out any concerns he may have had. These concerns, for Andrei especially came rushing back when the infirmary called. He had known when he ahd answered his phone "Colonel Quaritch speaking."

"Ah Colonel" came to the voice "this is Doctor Kreuzmann in the infirmary. Sergeant Rose has woken up and wishes to speak to you sir."

"Right I'll be there soon" said Quaritch and hung up. He stood up and walked, always keeping the strongman look on his face, but inside he was not quite there. He was once again unsure as to how he should act. Should he show sympathy, criticize her, just listen, or do a combination of those actions. He still did not know when he reached the infirmary.

Sergeant Rose was lying in a bed, looking pale and weak. When even he feared her as a potential adversary in a fight because of her inhuman temper, to see her like this almost made him unsympathetic towards Andrei, seeing how far he had taken someone down. Then he remembered who was who and what they had done. Sergeant Rose looked at him weakly, and Quaritch moved in closer to hear her. "Hello sir" she said.

"Hello Sergeant" said Quaritch deciding to go for the unsympathetic approach.

"Did ya punish the bastard?" she asked, smiling, as if she already knew the answer and expected it in the affirmative.

"No, I did not, you're not dead, as long as you're alive Sergeant, Lieutenant Semyonov will be safe" he replied.

She was confused, whereas before she would have been angry, now she was too weak "What?"

"Yes he did do you serious harm, but do you think I would not support him when you try and break the chain of command like that and show such intentional disrespect to an officer? Did you really think Sergeant that I would punish the one person who did not roll over and die because you threatened something?"

She tried forming words but could not complete them, and said "But he..."

"Seriously injured you? Yes he did Sergeant, but you tried to usurp his command, you humiliated him in front of the others, and let's face it you are much stronger than him" Quaritch now glared at her "What else could he have done?"

Whereas before she would have stared right back at him now she too cowered before his stare "But he didn't have to hurt me so bad."

"I'm sure that miner who fancied you, said the same thing about you, but he did the wrong thing and got burned for it. You did the wrong thing and you will face the same consequences he did. Besides knowing you if Andrei had gone half way he would be dead. Do you really think you would have spared him? Don't you dare feel sorry for yourself Sergeant."

She started crying, and Doctor Kreuzmann looked at Quaritch astonished. "Sir this is not good for my patient's morale."

"Yeah well I don't care; she needs to learn that she can't take her problems out on other people who have done her no wrong. I'm merely part of the healing process, Doctor" said Quaritch and he walked out, feeling better for having done that.

Back in the mountains, Andrei and his men had finished scanning another three mountains before lunchtime and had scanned another four before it was time to return to base. They had been able to do so many, as most did not have any hollow spots. However Cpatain O'Donnell said that his scans of other mountains suggested Andrei and his men would have more hiking to do, when they returned as there were some mountains which were not so solid. The only scary thing to happen that day, happened as they were dropped off onto the second to last mountain, a mountain top devoid of cover.

As Andrei ordered the men into extended formation one of the men had shouted "Banshees!"

Andrei had followed his finger and saw them, two blue dragons diving in on them. Andrei had aimed along with everyone else and waited until their predatory intentions were too obvious to ignore before he shouted "Fire!" He fired and saw the tracer from his gun and others rip up towards the flying carnivores, and as they came closer they were hit. One dropped immediately to the forest floor, the other's flight path carried it towards them. "Disperse!" he cried out, and the men ran in order to avoid it, its great body crashed down, tumbled and then fell off the mountain.

When they had boarded the chopper to head back to base Andrei had done an ammunition check, and found out that nobody had emptied their clips, but asked them to unload, himself included so that they could ascertain how many more they needed to draw for tomorrow. In all ninety seven shots had been fired. What Andrei did not know is that soon he would have a much more deadly encounter with the banshees.

He had found the Colonel waiting for him. This time the lights were on, though the illumination made him more not less tired and he dreaded what may come, the news that he would spend five years nine months and twenty two days, not aging, not breathing, not really living, just to be court martialled. Instead the Colonel smiled at him "She'll be alright Andrei, but she ain't gonna recover too soon, I've never seen her so meek, and I didn't think someone like you would be the one to bring her down."

"I'm not proud of it sir, but I would do it again if I had to."

"Well I've seen the report you typed up and the data you sent with it, good work out there today, so I see you met the banshees. Well you guys are all alive and uninjured, that is what matters. Anyway, you're gonna spend the next four days exploring the area around Hometree and if you could meet that native you met before, talking to her is an acceptable diversion from gathering data on the terrain."

"Sir, we met by chance I doubt we will meet again, sir" said Andrei.

"I don't think so Lieutenant a person in her situation will be seeking you out again, don't forget I'm fifty two years old, I've lived more than twice as long as you, she wants to get attention, you gave it to her, her tribe isn't. A malcontent like her will actually listen to us, and tell us things if you behave correctly." He stood up and then said as he walked out "She'll be waiting for you."

Andrei meant what he said, he doubted it. From what he had seen the Na'vi wanted to be nothing with regards to them, except belligerent and racist.


	15. Chapter 15

_Part 15 _

Parker Selfridge awoke to brush his teeth, do another run, and eat breakfast. He dressed today for once in a suit, as opposed to his normal casual dress because he felt like having a little change in his mundane routine. He went to his office that morning to find it once again filed with reports which he had to read, and then sign off that he had read them, and it was important to do so, most of them were to do with the mining and science operations. He was again grateful for Colonel Quaritch who only sent him reports that involved casualties, incidents, and ammunition expenditure. In turn, unless it was general advice on how to handle subordinates, neither man told the other how to do his job. He now looked at a report which told him that the current unobtainium mining site would be exhausted of resources in about six months. Contrary to what was said the miners wasted nothing, everything was taken back to base to be processed. That was where the bullets, the clothes, accessories and other things came from.

After three hours of intensive work, he now had to review the formal complaint filed by Sergeant Rose against Lieutenant Semyonov. It was what he had expected, the Colonel having passed it on to him with the note attached saying 'I'm too involved to be objective.' As Selfridge read it he thought he too could not be objective. He knew Sergeant Rose's type and was frightened of them, he hated them and he saw how she intimidated people. It did not take long for him to write in large capital letters across the face of the complaint '**REJECTED'**

Later in the day he went around touring the places of work in Hell's Gate, checking first accounting, export, communications. He then visited the manufacturing plant to see how work was progressing and was pleased to see the processing department had actually overfulfilled its quota, to which he had said to the head of manufacturing "Excellent Smith for this you get the Victory Class first class by order of Big Brother, i.e. me!" Someone had actually laughed at his humour, and he hoped that the day continued to go well, as it might momentarily please the sense of emptiness present in his life.

Colonel Miles Quaritch was now working on the paperwork to start the rotation of personnel to and from danger zones. He had to review the rotations and decide which expedition out in the Pandoran jungle got what. The who was down to the people below him, but every two weeks he had to review the likely situation that the expedition would encounter and assign it a security escort, the size based on how far the relevant party was from the base. Doing this finally removed any worry he had had about Andrei and Sergeant Rose. He also was getting good info from Jake's reports, although he noticed Jake seemed to be just that bit tired every passing day and worried about his health. In the end he decided not to worry, Doctor Augustine would not lose her access point to the Omaticaya by allowing Jake to become ill.

He spent six hours endlessly poring over these files and having to do calculations for each one of them, this included authorizing the appropriate transport, organising supply, issuing orders for briefings to be drawn up for all the appropriate personnel, all of which had to be reviewed by the people involved, and if there were any queries sent back to him directly. It promised to be a long boring day and he did not have the time to go training. He instead waited for sundown when Andrei would be back and there might be something new.

On another part of Pandora Tsu'tey after a successful scouting trip to follow a group of viperwolves without being attacked with trainee warriors, he had come back to Hometree for a nap. He had queried the Eytukan about the whereabouts of Ney'tiri. He said she was out training the moron (Jake) how to use a bow and arrow. He had thought about going there to see just how bad Jake was, but decided against it as Ney'tiri would not like him interrupting her training, and he respected that. He would ask when she got back. In the meantime he decided to go for a nap.

He wished he had not. He had a nightmare, once again about his Father and the Sky man who had killed him. He had been taught to hate the Sky people, and found it impossible to tolerate them in any fashion whatsoever after his father's death. The idea that the Sky people were skilled and interesting people, worthy of his attention and respect was a complete anathema to him, as it was to most of the Omaticaya, but more strongly with him.

In the dream the Sky man who had killed his father came after him in a void. Tsu'tey was lying down, he could only move his head and hands. Always his father was there, and always he would be killed and the Sky man would come for him, so small, so weak, so cowardly, yet victorious. The terror Tsu'tey felt was not over the fact that Sky man was stabbing him over and over again, so small, so weak, but that he could not understand this thing that came for him and so dearly wanted to kill him when it was so small, so weak.

He woke in his canopy and the covering jerked open as he wrenched himself up, breathing hard as if he had been running.

In the meantime, while everyone had been doing all this, Andrei and his men had landed, scanned 20km2, eaten lunch and done another 20km2 all before having to go back to base. There was one encounter worthy of note though, and that was to do with a nest of viperwolves in the morning. One the men had whispered urgently over the platoon net "Quiet!" Andrei had crouched down along with everyone else "Listen!" came the voice again. It was private Collins.

Andrei heard it, the growl, the cackling, viperwolves. He scanned the area for where the sound was coming from, his hearing was not as good as Private Collins obviously so he whispered "Lead the way Collins I can't find it."

"Alright sir" he said.

Andrei saw Collins motion with his left hand to his left, and began creeping as silently as possible, more alert than he had ever seen the men before. Nobody made a noise, except Andrei, whose boots occasionally snapped a twig, and it annoyed him. He tried going more slowly but then he just fell behind and had to speed up, causing more twig snapping. "Uh men, let's slow it down so I don't make so much noise and get us killed" he whispered.

They complied and they pressed on, until Collins urgently called a halt. He said "I see them a papa, a mama, and five cubs I'll scan 'em sir." A few minutes later he called in "Do you want to wipe them out sir?"

Andrei thought for a moment and then said "Yes let's do that, everyone move into position, Fike and Wainfleet watch our backs." His orders were fulfilled slowly and wordlessly. He himself moved into position and aimed down the sight at the nearest cub, they were playing, being young, being cute; he did not care, they were carnivores, they had to die. "On my mark" said Andrei "three...two...one...fire." Six guns blazed and seven animals died. Other than that, he and his men had been in no danger.

Shodan had awoken that day to a cold breakfast, not in the literal sense, but in the spiritual sense. Her mother and father were cold to her, speaking to her, but the icy correctness, which was too icy to be correct, sapped her will today as it did everyday. She went into the forest around Hometree, taking a Pa'li with her to go faster. It was the only way she could escape Hometree. On the way she had seen Ney'tiri training Jake how to use a bow and arrow again. She had watched and observed carefully, outwardly she was cruel to him and did not go easy, and kept up the contemptuous front her people had for the Sky people. However watching closely she could see that she was attracted to him, and the attraction was probably mutual. She would hit him if he did something wrong, but the way she smiled at him told her everything she needed to know. She had ridden off, trying to not think about Tsu'tey her unrequited love, and her position. She wandered around, making tsa'hey'lu with animals, and the forest, more than usual, trying to get an answer from Eywa. She had no luck, and she listened for the foreign voices of the Sky people, the roar of their metal beasts. She found herself, against her will wishing for them to appear, at least she could talk to them and they would listen.

Andrei had been surprised when Colonel Quaritch was not there to greet him. Instead he saw Administrator Selfridge, sitting there in a dark blue suit, wearing that ironic smile that suggested he knew something you didn't. "Sir, where is Colonel Quaritch?" he asked.

The smile broadened "Its time for the Colonel to change the guard here at Buckingham Palace, so he's buried beneath a mountain of paperwork, so Ironically I have less to do than him. I saw your report and forwarded it to the Colonel, good work, nobody is dead, that's always nice."

Andrei sat down opposite the administrator, more nervous around him than he was the Colonel as the administrator looked like he was about to say 'You're fired.' "Well sir, we covered a lot of ground, but the terrain in the areas we explored was surprisingly flat and simple, I don't expect that to be the case always."

"Of course not, but it is still a good day's work. Besides the elimination of those pests there is not much to talk about. I mean observing herbivores and passive plants is not exactly interesting, well it is, but I don't need to know more than the fact that you observed them. Well anyway what you observed is interesting in that it tells us where the Na'vi are unlikely to fight in a land battle, because as you said, the area favours us, and I think even they now that." Andrei could see the administrator had very basic military knowledge, but felt very awkward doing this, and clearly was not doing a very good job. It was okay though, Andrei know that he would be even more lost trying to debrief a Board of directors on the predicted profits of the next fiscal year. "One thing I gotta ask though" said the administrator snapping Andrei out of his thoughts "Why did you shoot her?" Andrei felt the adrenaline course through him, causing him to stop breathing, this was it, he was done for. "Why didn't you just accept it? Why did you decided to finally stand up for yourself."

Andrei swallowed and breathed in deeply bracing himself "Well, I was bullied...."

"Yes, I know, all your life, your dossier said so. However all those times, you gave way, not this time, why?"

After thinking Andrei said "I believe, that, that I just couldn't stand it anymore, one time too many. I was tired of it, I could sort of tolerate it in school and University, but not in a situation where I was supposed to be in command. I just wasn't going to let it happen. I was finally going to have my way."

"Well that's good enough for me. Sergeant Rose's complaint will most certainly be rejected, now get some sleep, you've got another day out there, and you need your energy. Like the Colonel I too want you to find that native again." Selfridge stood up and walked out. Andrei regretted not asking if the reason they were so anxious, was so they could give the finger to the Avatar team.


	16. Chapter 16

_Part 16, I am Shodan _

Now with his M12 Colt rifle, Andrei Semyonov looked with boredom upon another day of trudging around the Pandoran jungle. The Dragon went along at 105 knots per hour towards the Na'vi Hometree, this time, for the first time they were going beyond the river to what was 'the other side of Hometree'. There was still an enormous amount of territory to cover, and Andrei had written in his latest report, that not all of the territory of the two regions would be covered, even if there was a focus on only one of the areas.

He saw the Tree in the distance, but they steered clear of it by at least ten miles, if possible they wished to avoid detection. Andrei had stood on the first and second days, now he sat, worn out by the physical exertion and the fact that his men grudgingly accepted his authority. Tears actually formed in his eyes as he remembered his days as a cadet, forced into make lies about sexual exploits in the stupid hope that this would get him respect, tolerating horrible pop music and all for nothing except to fill himself with self-loathing. All the while he had thought 'I could lead, and be effective. If they let me do that I'd show them that even though I'm not perfect I am still damned good. If only I had a chance.' That chance had never come, not until he met the Colonel. The Colonel was the first one to actually take a chance on him, a big chance, to give him to prove himself, he would not waste it.

Shodan in the meantime had been told to get meat again, and this time had gone to sleep before story time, which was obligatory for all tribe members. However she reasoned, she was invisible most of the time, why should anyone notice. As it was, no one had noticed, and she had gone hunting while it was still dark, and killed a Yerik and brought it back, no one was awake though, so she had left it with the night watchman. With nothing to do she waited until the Chief had definitely woken up and then went to see him. When she had gone back to where the night watchman had been he wasn't there. She had gone then running around the tree searching for her prize. She had found it with the Chief. "Yes, what is it you want Shodan?"

"My chief, I see that you have seen the animal I killed first for the people this day."

He had advanced on her with murder in his eyes, and she recoiled in fear "How dare you claim credit for a kill that is not your own Fa'gan (the name of the night watchman) killed this. Do not try to bring yourself glory by taking that of others. Now go, before I have you shamed before the entire tribe for this perfidy."

A shocked, outraged, and impotent Shodan had bowed obsequiously and then run out of the tree. Taking a Pa'li she had ridden out, the tears blocking her vision, her knife with her. She rode out to a quiet place far from the tree. She would kill herself. This was supposed to bring damnation from Eywa, but she did not care. She would throw herself upon the mercy of the mother rather than on that of her tribe. She had tried to become one of them, but as this incident had shown, they had no interest. She was a flaw. A flaw in their otherwise perfect existence. Nobody loved her, nobody acknowledged her, and nobody would care, her absence would be noted by her parents only, and then without interest.

She stopped dismounted and took out her knife, and began saying prayers. "Mother who has given me life and energy, I now return this to you so that it may bring itself into an another to walk among your beauty, so that we may see...' She broke down crying at that. No one had ever said 'I see you' in a positive way to her. It was clear that no one really saw into her. They saw what they wished to see, a dwarf, a shame to the tribe. They did not see her good heart, her skills, her devotion to the tribe. It would be best to end it now. She could be with Eywa and from her scream to those like her, that they were not alone, but that the mother would help them. Perhaps though, the mother would be just like them, and she would not be with her, she would go to where those who killed themselves were supposed to go, to nothingness. To wait alone for all eternity with the other damned souls, never to die, always hungry and thirsty with nothing and no one to help them.

What should she do? What should she do? She was alone and frightened, death would be as bad or worse as living, and living was unbearable for her without any exaggeration.

Then she heard it, the distinctive alien rumble, the unnatural wind, it got louder as it came closer. She looked up and she saw it, descending, metal and green. It was the large gunship. The same one that had brought the Sky people, the people who had listened to her.

She ran with a joy she never thought she would find towards the sound, to those who valued her, even if it was only enough not to kill her.

"GO!" shouted Andrei as he and his men ran off the back ramp of the Dragon and fanned out scanning the trees and their surroundings for hostiles, automatically now going into the extended line formation they used for their exploratory expeditions. He shouted into the comm "Sir, we've landed, don't go too far!"

"Roger that" he barely heard Captain O' Donnell respond, and as they moved in the direction of Hometree, he heard the Dragon lift off and head still further away from Hometree.

Now Andrei and his men moved off towards the large tree, scanning the ground all the more urgently because there could be Na'vi, and those Na'vi could be unfriendly. They advanced, and advanced, and as always Andrei grew tired sweaty, and tried not to think about Lactic acid buildup, as that would only bring him greater fatigue.

They heard the approach of running footsteps, with none of the animal growls that signified a wild beast on Pandora. They all aimed their weapons, wanting to see what this was, maybe it was just a smart wild beast, either way, they were ready to do to it, what they had done to the viperwolves yesterday. Instead a Na'vi came running through, and when it saw them slowed to a halt, and put its hands up. It looked familiar. It spoke "I see you come again to the hunting grounds of my tribe."

Andrei recognized its voice, it was that female Na'vi that had begged them a few days back to kill them, and the one the administrator and the Colonel so desperately wanted him to find. Andrei had to shout, being fifty yards away "Come closer!" It carefully moved forward, cautiously, aware that Andrei and his men would happily gun it down. When it was twenty yards away Andrei shouted "Stop!" It halted. "Hello again" said Andrei cautiously, not lowering his weapon.

"Hello sky hunting party leader" she said.

"What do you want?" asked Andrei.

"I want to speak, with you."

Andrei lowered his weapon and the others followed suit "Why?" he asked cautiously.

The thing seemed to consider and then said "Because you listened." It was rather embarrassed to say that.

Andrei however had his orders, and was also intrigued by the cryptic answer. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that I, uh, you did not kill me even though most would have, and you wanted to know why I wanted to do die, nobody else does."

Andrei saw that this, even though it could be awkward, was his best chance to discovering more about the tribe, and he was under orders to follow through on conversations such as this. But he did not want to deviate too heavily from his mapping mission. "Alright I will speak with you. Corporal Wainfleet, take command and continue scouting I will stay here, and we will meet back at the LZ for lunch, is this clear?" he asked.

"Uh sir" the man said "Are you that is wise?"

"Trust me corporal you are in command for the moment, get this task completed" said Andrei as firmly as he could.

"Yes sir." Wainfleet now turned to the squad "Alright guys let's go" he said. Of course the squad followed him more willingly than it did Andrei.

He was now left alone with the Na'vi who finally put her hands down, and looked at him. Andrei was disgusted by her semi-nakedness. He knew better though than to ask her to put on clothes, as the Na'vi seemed to have none. He stood there dumbly looking at up at the giant blue woman and then said "So what is it you want to talk about?"

She thought, knelt down to his level and said "I want to talk to you about, us, or rather, our people. I want to learn about your people, you are different to how I thought a sky warrior would be, different to what I was told. I was told you would kill us without thought, that you murdered everything in your path, and you killed the mother without caring, that you smelled awful, that you were inferior and cowardly. I want to know what you think of your people, and mine."

Andrei was now intrigued and glad he had this all recorded. The Colonel would love it, something to stick right into Augustine and twist. The Na'vi were racist towards them, this was living proof. He also knew the administrator would love it, back on Earth people would have no patience for racist blue monkeys. However first he had a question "Why do you want to know what I think of my people?" he asked.

She knew the answer this time "All the sky people we meet say nothing but bad things about their people, and to me it seems as though they are desperate to be Na'vi and not sky people. So I want to know what a sky man, who wants to be a sky man, thinks."

That was an acceptable answer but now he had another question "Do you know of a human called Jake Sully?"

"Yes I do, he is training with the daughter of our chief to become one of the people. Why?"

"I want to know how he feels about the Na'vi and training to be one of them" answered Andrei. He suddenly realized that his legs felt tired.

"Oh he is coming along slowly, he is what we call a moron, because he makes so many mistakes. He seems eager to learn though."

"Does he now? Very well, before I begin answering your questions we must establish rules for conversation. Number one, do not call me a sky man, or my people, sky people, we are humans. My name is Andrei. Call me Andrei, or Lieutenant Semyonov, and when referring to my people, call them humans or humanity, never sky people, is this understood?" he asked.

"Yes, but, what is Lieutenant Semyonov, is that what you call a hunting leader?"

Andrei sighed and sat down "I can see we have a lot to discuss. Rule number two, do not protest if I kill hostile plants or animals."

She hesitated and very grudgingly said "Okay."

"Third and final rule I want you to show me some things, if possible Hometree itself, as well as religious sites of your people to do with what you call Eywa. I myself will in turn show you things about humanity that may be of interest to you."

"I can agree to taking you to important places to do with Eywa, but not Hometree."

"Why?"

"I am barely welcome there myself and I was born there, you are sky...sorry human, they will kill you, and me. I cannot take you there. If anyone sees us together who is not human, we risk being killed, do you understand?"

"Yes I understand. Now I can begin answering your questions. What was your first one?"

"Well, who are you?"

Andrei thought and then said "I am Andrei Leonidovich Semyonov. I am from Moscow, Russia, which is on Earth. I am now a Lieutenant in the Security division of the Resources Development Agency, a corporation that mines unobtanium here. In brief that is what I am."

She looked at him puzzled "That is a long name."

"It is three names. The first is my name, the second is my patronymic, the name of my father, Leonidovich, means of Leonid. Semyonov is my family name." He could see they were going to have to start from basics.

"What is Moscow? What is Russia?"

"Moscow is a beautiful city, it is situated on a river, the Moscow river. Twenty five million people live in it. It is the richest city in all of Russia, and is the center of government in business in my country. Russia is my country." He tried now to attach a Na'vi equivalent to it "Your country in human terms is like your tribe, I am of the Russian tribe, there are four hundred and fifty million members of my tribe. We are a diverse, powerful, yet troubled people, who have made too many stupid mistakes."

She was astonished "Four hundred and fifty million? That is more souls than I could comprehend. I know of no more than one hundred tribes on Pandora, each of about one thousand souls. My tribe the Omaticaya with five hundred and seventeen is small. Is your tribe the only tribe?"

Andrei was smiling. She was getting an idea about just how powerful his people were, not the Russians, but humanity, for the Russians were by no means the largest tribe. He also could tell she was beginning to see that they had underestimated humanity. "No my tribe is but one of 180 tribes on my planet. Mine is one of the largest. The largest tribe is the Chinese tribe, of three billion, two hundred million souls. Jake Sully is of the American tribe which has one billion souls. There are others, but those three are three of the ten wealthiest tribes."

She was shocked, and fell onto her knees and looked at him in awe. "I cannot begin to imagine that number of beings. There are just so many. What is wealthiest?"

He sighed, they really did have a lot of work to do.

By the time it was lunch he had had not a single opportunity to ask her a single question about herself and her people. With rapt curiousity she had grilled him about money. The history of his tribe. What a city was, what a building was, and what a government was, and so on. At the end of it, when he heard the chopper approach. She had said to him "I will be back in two hours, I need to sleep so my thoughts may make order of all that information, and she had stumbled off."

On the Dragon, as Andrei ate his corn beef and lettuce sandwich, the men asked him about what he and the Na'vi had been talking about. When he told them, they all laughed at the ignorance of the Na'vi about their species. Andrei could not help but smile too, the sheer number and diversity of their race, was more than any Na'vi could understand. Maybe now, if this Na'vi told her people of this, the Omaticaya tribe would realize that humanity was more powerful than they could comprehend, and that they should move, lest they anger such a power.

After lunch Corporal Wainfleet and the squad had continued their mission, while Andrei had waited for the Na'vi. She had come as promised, and she looked both bewildered, and set to ask still more questions. He decided to take the initiative "What is your name?" he asked her.

"My name is Shodan, I am of the Omaticaya tribe, although they would like to deny it. I am of Sho'zun and By'ana, I am their only child, they did not have more after I was born for fear they would produce another. Most parents have two or three children. I am not a permanent member of the people, I am a guest, for the rest of my life."

Andrei asked "Why?"

"To you I may seem tall but to my people I am shorter than normal, so much so that it is considered strange, too strange to be natural, and I am perfect. All true Na'vi are supposed to be within set height limits, giants are not a problem, but those without heigt, such as I, are not thought of as Na'vi, but as false Na'vi. I suffer prejudice because of my height. I was trained as a warrior and can hunt, but I could not fly an Ikran, as it overpowered me. No one would help me, or let me try again. As such I am a guest, I am mocked, I am laughed at, and people avoid my company for fear that their offspring or they themselves should catch the lack of height. I am forbidden from telling stories. I am forbidden to ask for a hearing, as I am not truly part of the tribe. Everything is supposed to be perfect because of the mother, Eywa, I am not perfect, and therefore I am abandoned because I am not of Eywa."

Andrei was slightly confused, but understood most of that. So she had failed to become a warrior and suffered prejudice from her tribe because in Na'vi terms she was a dwarf. He also understood that this resulted in her having fewer rights than the most of the Omaticaya, and that even her own parents shunned her, she was then a true malcontent, which was perfect for his purposes. He made a note to order manufacturing to give her a uniform, should be easy for them, she was shorter than most Na'vi.

"Alright I see, we were led to believe that there was no such thing as discrimination amongst the Na'vi by Doctor Augustine" he said.

"The one you call Doctor Augustine, who we call Grace, has never seen me or the way the tribe treat me, I am forbidden from being near her, unless she discover. Even if she saw this, I think she would ignore it and say I provoked it somehow. She said there was great discrimination amongst humanity."

"Yes there is, but the point is she was portraying your people to us as perfect. This is of great comfort to myself and will be to the Colonel."

"What is a Colonel?"

"A Colonel is a rank in all human militaries, denoting someone who commands a regiment, or about three thousand soldiers. The Colonel here only commands one thousand six hundred. He is our chief warrior you could say."

"Is this Colonel your chief?" Shodan asked.

"No, our chief is not a warrior, but one who does not fight. We have many who do not fight, and they tell the soldiers what to do. In turn the soldiers are well paid and protect those who are weaker than them, on Pandora at least not always on Earth. On Earth sometimes warriors from one tribe will kill another, or even those who do not fight from another tribe."

She was horrified by this "Amongst our people we never kill each other, one who kills a brother, without cause, is immediately an outcast, to be killed on sight. One warrior from one tribe will never kill another."

Andrei wanted to ask her more "What do you do to become a rider of an Ikran."

She described to him the process, and he nodded, taking it all in and noting it down as a question ask her before he went. Throughout the afternoon he interviewed her on her tribe, the number of warriors, their training and tactics, all the while giving nothing away about his people's training and tactics, though to do what he wished to accomplish, he would have to let her see the inside of the Dragon. He also asked her about Tsa'hey'lu and the hierarchy of their society. The rights of men as opposed to women, their education.

He had learned a lot by the time he knew he had to ask the question that was necessary, he would also need to speak to the Colonel to get permission, although he had a feeling he would. "Alright Shodan, this has been very interesting."

"Yes it has Andrei, I have a lot more to ask you I hope we can meet again."

"Well we can if you will do this. Be here tomorrow. I want you to show us the place where your people go to become Ikran riders."

She looked shocked, not for the first time that day either. "I do not know, I do not have an Ikran, and neither do you."

"We will take you in the helicopter we came in on."

"That metal beast?"

"Yes and you will show us where, then the helicopter can drop us off at a suitable landing zone and you can show us up close."

"No I cannot do that, it would be going against the rules of the tribe to bring outsiders like yourselves there."

Andrei knew where to push "Your tribe does not care about you, you are not part of it. You therefore are not bound by its rules, you can do this for us. We in turn will show you where we live. Please do this it would be good for both our peoples."

"No I may only be a guest, but I live in their tree I must obey."

"Shodan, do you think they will pat you on the back and say 'good girl we accept you in the tribe now because you respected the rules?' No according to you, you have done that all your life and it had done nothing for you. You are under no obligation to them, you can do this."

She pondered, for a long time, and then scrunching her face said "Alright, I will show you Ikinmaya, but if we are found, it will mean death for all of us."

"Thank you kindly" said Andrei, now go back to your people, for I must return to mine. I will see you tomorrow." Without another word, he turned around and headed for the landing zone, hearing Shodan's footsteps fade as she ran for Hometree.


	17. Chapter 17

_Part 17, the hell of Ikinmaya, and also the longest chapter so far. See if you can spot the Metro 2033 tribute_

The Colonel had debriefed Andrei that day, looking sleepy as he did, yawning and once even slapping himself to stay awake. Andrei remembered that the Colonel had had a lot of work to do, more than usual, and since he never neglected his personal training, he must have been exhausted. The Colonel was not all interested in the terrain scanned but entirely on his conversation with Shodan. "So how much did you tell her?"

"Nothing about our training, tactics, equipment, location of operations or anything like that sir. It was more general things about Earth, human culture, and military hierarchy. Considering the fact that Augustine portrays them as paragons of wisdom and knowledge, I was actually surprised by how ignorant they are. They had no idea we had so many people on Earth, such a variety of cultures, languages, and such a rich history that is so massive and interesting that one could not possibly hope to comprehend it in one lifetime."

"Well, I'm glad you exercised appropriate discretion in these matters. I don't need to remind you to be careful in handling this thing tomorrow. She may be an outcast, and as you say in your report, thus not listened to. Just bear in mind that since it has become clear that these savages are like us in many ways. She may ambush, kill you, and take the Dragon to score her points with the tribe and become accepted. Bear that in mind and approach her with caution."

"Yes sir."

"The Uniform you requested for her, will be on the Dragon tomorrow morning." He paused, and rubbed his eyes, then looked back up, suddenly looking older than Andrei had ever seen him before. "I hope this does go well, as you are providing me, from this one conversation, with good useable intel, that corroborates everything that Jake is saying. When we're done, we're gonna know these people better than they know themselves, and if that happens we will be victorious."

As the Dragon approached Hometree the following morning. Andrei looked at the giant uniform folded up next to him, and the extraordinarily large pair of boots, and socks. He wondered if she would wear them, maybe she would be reluctant to shed her natural apparel or perhaps she would be open minded and try and put herself in the mind of a human.

Andrei need not have worried. Shodan had run home in high spirits. She had just had the most memorable conversation of her life up to that point. She had learned so much, and still there was so much to learn. She felt that with this knowledge she could become important to the tribe, and with her eventual understanding of the humans, and by their understanding of them, through her, an agreement could be reached, and peace would be assured. As she entered the tree, people ignoring her as usual, it suddenly dawned on her that if she wanted to know more, it would be in her best interests not to breath a word to anybody as she might be put under guard if she told anybody she had had contact with one of the Sky people, no humans, she corrected herself. If she spoke to Grace, or Jake, they would either betray her out of innocence, or out of a desire that the human warriors, not come in and offer another view on humanity to which she and Jake were offering. It also would result in the death of Sky warriors and yet another push to a war with the humans. Sometimes she wondered if that is what Tsu'tey wanted. He had reason to hate the humans, they had killed his father, and were destroying the mother. However now that she had spoken to the human, whereas before she felt nothing but ignorant contempt for them, she felt revulsion at their approach.

However as she had gone to bed, without speaking to anyone, and for the first time in a long time not caring that she was ignored or what had happened earlier, she reflected that the humans too needed to modify their attitude. Yet someone had to start the process, it might as well be her people, maybe that way the Humans could be pleased, and then start negotiating. What was it they wanted anyway?

Andrei tensed himself as the Dragon came to the same LZ it had before, and settled itself down. He scanned the area for the Na'vi but could not see her. He feared the worst and suspected they had been set up, and even if they had not been, what was to say she would not try and kill them all once she was inside the Dragon?

The Dragon settled down, and they watched and waited. "I've got movement" came the call of Sergeant Gunderson, the sensor monitor in the Dragon. Andrei looked around but could not see anything. He looked and looked and tugging at his shirt in a state of agitation.

"I see her" cried Private Fike "She's alone, or appears to be." Andrei went over to where he was, and sure enough he saw her, alone, walking cautiously towards the gunship.

"Alright everyone!" Andrei called out. "I want weapons ready and pointing down that ramp, stay in cover, be ready but don't shoot until absolutely necessary got it?"

Nobody even nodded in assent, they just carried out the tasks and pretended that he was not there. They still did not respect him, at this point Andrei was set on giving up hope, at least they followed his orders. Everyone donned exopacks, when that was done, he gave the command "Drop the ramp!"

The ramp extended downward, allowing for something to come on. He inhaled and walked out of the Dragon, as the Pandoran atmosphere mixed with the terran atmosphere. His legs felt like jelly, expecting to be shot down, he wanted to run back into the safety of the Dragon, but his mind kept him going until he was outside, and face to face with Shodan. She nodded at him, and he nodded back and said "Get in" hoping she did not notice the terror in his voice.

They walked back up the ramp the guns of his men trained on Shodan, and on the outside, as soon as they were safely back on board Andrei shouted "Pull the ramp back up" the nervousness clearly seeping through. His men grinned at each other, Andrei felt like crying. With any other leader it would be 'ha ha, you nearly wet yourself, but we still love you.' With him it was 'ha ha, you nearly wet yourself, now we don't even have to pretend to listen to you anymore.' He turned to Shodan who was ill at ease among them and felt awkward. Andrei indicated the pile of clothes and said "Put those on Shodan."

To his surprise she looked pleased at the prospect "Really? You would allow me to wear the clothing of a human warrior?"

"Yes, please put them on, you know how to do it don't you?"

"Yes, but, will it fit?"

"I had manufacturing make specially for you, it will fit."

She solemnly walked over, and unfolded the shirt, which was still zipped up, she looked at it, aware that the zip was supposed to come undone for her to put on the shirt, but not knowing how to do it. She looked to Andrei, and he went over to undo it for her. She then put it on, and indicated the zip again, and bent down. He did it up for her again. He then undid the trousers, and indicated them, and to his surprise again she knew how to put it on, and this time, after some guesswork she got the trousers on, zipped up, and buttoned. He then indicated the socks and boots "Put them on" he said monotonal.

She looked helpless "I don't know how, are they necessary?"

"Yes they protect your feet" he pointed to the floor, "sit down!" he commanded. He was not being nice and tolerating as he should have been. He was feeling awkward having to show her how to dress, and he could see Fike grabbing a certain region of his body suggestively, and he heard the English private say "Get it going my son." All this combined to make him flustered as he put on her socks for her, and then her boots and tied the laces for her, all the while hating everyone but the crew of the ship.

He then remembered as he finished and she stood up and looked at herself. "Captain, get us going to the Hallelujah mountains." He said it in a panicked voice causing more laughter from his men, and a look of puzzlement to appear on Shodan's face.

Captain O'Donnell was quite phlegmatic "Okee doke Andrei, we're off." The machine rumbled to life and lifted itself up.

Shodan immediately looked out of the port window in amazement at the sight of the ground going away. She had never flown before as she had failed her test, and she had never imagined that this would be her first flight. It was so different. She touched the metal in awe. She looked at her uniform, and her feet felt more comfortable than they ever had in her entire life, they were protected and invisible beneath her black footware. She looked at Human warrior, whose name she gathered, was Andrei, so small, so frail compared to her, yet the power within this beast was greater than even a Toruk. He looked at her and said "Tuck in your shirt" coldly.

She felt somewhat off put by this. He was not being very welcoming, and still treated her as an enemy even though he had given her the battle dress of his people. She did not know what to do even, but she saw that he had his shirt, if she was remembering her English correctly, in his trousers, so she awkwardly shoved it in all around her waist, and tried to smooth it out once inside. The human looked on almost disapprovingly, and she wondered why? She thought perhaps it was that he hated and mistrusted her people and her. Maybe he thought he was foolish for revealing the secrets of his people's warriors to her. She did not know, what she could sense, from the way his men behaved towards him, was that he was a fellow malcontent, albeit not nearly as much on the fringe of her society as her. Somebody important trusted him enough to give him command.

He looked her up and down, nodded approvingly, but with a wary look on his face. She noticed that the humans still were wearing those masks, which she knew allowed them to breath the air. Had they kept the regular atmosphere present for her sake. If so she was grateful. "Follow me please" he said "and keep your head down." He then walked off, and went through an entrance that could be plugged by a metal frame. She searched her mind for the word in English 'door' it was called. A completely alien concept, for their was no such functional item among her people. She bent down, till she was on her knees walking forward awkwardly, the human warriors chuckling at her. So humans too laughed cruelly at natural clumsiness, yet another fault with them, but her people were no better. She entered through, and into a bizarre world she could not comprehend.

The door shut behind her, but she did not notice. She stood as far as the ceiling would let her, which really only let her crouch, in an uncomfortable position. The humans in this place dressed differently to those outside, they wore uniforms and things on their heads she could not understand. The humans turned to look at her, they were even more hostile to her than Andrei, who was stood behind her. She also noticed the humans had their masks removed, they looked such more, Na'vi like that. She could see clearly that they had eyes, and mouths just like her people, and hair. Yet they did not have the queues and she wondered if that was why they did not understand what they were destroying. How could they hear the screams if they were impossibly deaf? A man spoke to Andrei "Is this our guide Lieutenant?" he asked.

"Yes sir" he said " She can guide to where we need to go when we reach the Hallelujah mountains."

Shodan suddenly jerked, she had just realized that she could be breath in the air the humans breathed. This action produced hostility and she noticed the funnily dressed men tense, and Andrei go for his cowardly knife. "What is the matter?" he asked without an iota of concern for her. She suddenly regretted coming, among these aliens, all who would have, without hesitation killed her. She wanted to be let off this beast with its strange colors, that she did not understand. The things which eminated an artificial light and changed, all the things on the wall which she knew she should not touch, but did not know what they did. Then she remembered her tribe was no better, she should be patient and understanding.

"Nothing I just realized I can breath what you breath."

Andrei nodded and his hand moved away from his cowardly knife. "Indeed, we suspected that you might be able to, but had no proof that you could." He paused then said "We are now going to the floating mountains, what you call them I do not know. We call them the Hallelujah mountains. You told us that somewhere there is a place where trainee warriors go to become riders of Ikran, we call them Banshees. What was the name of the path?"

"Ikinmaya" she said, starting again to have serious doubts about what she was doing, so she had thought she had better ask a question to try and find out what the true purpose of the humans was.

"Why do you wish to see Ikinmaya?"

"We want to know more about your people" said Andrei. He could say that without lying, what Andrei had not told to the Colonel just yet, as he was not sure if it was possible, was maybe, if it was in anyway possible, they could destroy this thing called Ikinmaya, as a means of hurting the Omaticaya without attacking Hometree. Until he knew more about it, other than that it was important. He would not make a fool of himself by suggesting something stupid.

"Very well then I shall show it to you when we get to the mountains, we call them, well in your language it would be thundering rocks. I will show you them." She looked around at her surroundings, the strange lights, all the metal things, and other materials which were completely alien to Pandora were here. It was overwhelming, it was intimidating, she wanted to jump out of the, what was it the humans called it?, a gunship, yes a gunship and take her chances in living and finding her way back to Hometree. All these people here, even the one called Andrei were so hostile and suspicious of her and ready to her at the slightest provocation. However what kept her on the ship was her determination to better relations with the humans. What made her tolerate their behaviour was that unlike the way she had seen her people behave toward Jake Sully, she saw that they were afraid of her, they thought that she might have done this simply to destroy this, which clearly was very valuable to the humans from within. However they did not take it as unforgiveable that she was courteous, and far before her people had taken that consideration for Jake they had decided, even when she had provoked them, not to kill her, but to instead welcome her, albeit cautiously and even dress her as one of them. Her people had been thinking of killing Jake simply because he was a human in a false body, even though he clearly meant no harm. Even though back at the time she had had a blind hatred of what she had thought of then as simply the sky people, she had been outraged when Tsu'tey was getting set to kill Jake simply because he wanted to improve his standing by killing a being that had done him no wrong, and for extending what, even then she had known as a common human courtesy, the offering of a hand.

There was a long silence, even though the males who were dressed differently looked away from her, she could sense they were tense, expecting her to strike at any moment. Andrei was equally tense always keeping a hand near his cowardly knife. He was however the first one to break the silence. "So something that I have been thinking about. If your tribe wanted the full Potemkin village set up for Doctor Augustine, how is it that you got to be in her English classes?"

Her brain translated what he was saying, thought about it, and then said "It has been the only time, until I did this, that I did something for myself, instead of for the tribe. I know that idea broadly sounds selfish, but when the tribe has behaved the way they have behaved towards me, I know it is not selfish. I learned that a sky person was coming, one which looked like us, but was not us. She had a foreign nose, wore clothes, though not like these", she said gesturing to her uniform. "She had five fingers, and hair above her eyes, she was not like us, and gentler than I expected a human to be. I also learned she was teaching us the tongue of the sky people, sorry of humanity, and I decided, I would not be left out. Even though they would disapprove of it, and they could try and stop me, from going to those classes, I knew they could never stop me because then the one called Grace, who clearly thought much of us, would not think much of us anymore if she saw me being, discriminated against. Even when she explained the idea of discrimination among your people to us, I kept silent, I did not want to make my situation any worse."

He nodded, and said "Well there is a lot of discrimination amongst ourselves. For some it is because of ideas, the color of our hair, our skin, our nationality, the way we dress, what we do as a work. Things are complicated on Earth, but at least we don't pretend that we are all wonderful and perfect" he remarked acidly to her, then thought "at least most of us do, I think, some do pretend, but there is a very vocal majority that does not pretend."

She looked at him. She decided to ask a provocative question, but one that needed answering "Why do you kill the mother to get that rock?"

To her surprise he was perfectly calm. "We need it, without it our planet would die. Our system of work, which is too complex for me to explain to you, would collapse without it, food production would fall, law and order would collapse and people would kill each other in masses, until there was almost no one left. We need that rock also to restore our mother. All of our planet, or most of it anyway used to be as green as all this" he said gesturing out to the forest which rushed beneath them. "We killed it, we killed it, and the result was we live longer, are wealthier, and more comfortable than we were when we started out as a species. We can travel to planets like this one, because we did what we did. Your people could never dream of travelling to my planet. The cost of doing this is having done this, too few have become rich, allowing too many to remain poor, and we are killing ourselves drowning in our own filth. We are having fewer children, our numbers are starting to fall, and we are trying to restore our mother. Without killing a bit of your mother though, it is impossible."

He fell silent, the other men did not respond, but seemed to have heard and been moved by this speech. She wanted to say something but could not find the words, her mind had so many different responses. She stopped when she saw the familiar landscape. The high mountains, and the veil of clouds up ahead. The other humans could sense it. She heard one of them say something she did not understand, with all the others saying "Copy." They were in the mountains now. She felt the gunship slow, she tensed, along with all the others as they waited for the clouds to disappear to reveal the mountains, and not a collision with one of them. To their relief that is exactly what happened.

Andrei was surprised at the look of awe on Shodan's face, he had expected her to have seen this spectacle already, she looked the same way he and all the men on the gunship had looked when they had first seen these mountains. "Why do you look awed you've seen these before, have you not?"

She looked at him and said "Yes, but never from the air, I am not a rider of Ikran. I have never fully gotten to see the majesty of these mountains." He decided to let her look a bit more then said "Where do we go now to find Ikinmaya?" he asked.

She looked stunned for a moment then remembered and said "Yes, right, now you will want to do what we are doing now. We actually are lucky, you are headed almost exactly towards it, I will tell when you need to perform an action to get us there" she said. Andrei nodded and watched the mountains fly past, each was unique, there was nothing like them on Earth, but then again Earth had its jungles, the few that still existed, and the inorganic jungles called cities. There was nothing like that here, and Hell's Gate did not count. Even though inside the fence was 100% safe, the wild life having learned at least fifteen years ago that getting too close meant death, it was not a place to live. It was a military base under siege, a factory churning out vital resources in the enemy heartland. It was a vaguely romantic notion, until you remembered the acid burns, and chewed on remains. Andrei had been to the medical wing only once, and there had been surprisingly few bad cases but what he had seen was shocking enough. "Go right a bit, just after we pass this mountain."

Andrei looked out to see them skirting close to a mountain, Captain O'Donnell turning ever so slightly with the curve of the mountain. When they came round the bend he saw a peculiar sight, a set of boulders that went up in a spiral, with the boulders suspended it seemed by vines. It stretched up for at the very least two hundred meters. "Is that Ikinmaya?" he asked Shodan.

"Yes and no. It is only part of the path. I suggest you tell this beast to slow down."

"I was intending to anyway" said Captain O'Donnell snippily.

Andrei felt that way too, he did not like the idea of a Na'vi bossing them around, they did that already, however this one struck him as being the sort of person who tried making suggestions to be helpful, and not just to show superiority. "Why do you want us to slow down?" Andrei demanded.

"Well I am thinking about just how I should show you this path. I don't think you and your men want to climb all the way up those rocks or have to do what comes next when yo reach the top which is jump for a vine, and climb up that. So should we use this beast to climb slowly, and I will explain what happens as we go?" she asked.

Andrei thought that sounded good "Sir, take us forward at your discretion."

"Yes Lieutenant" Captain O'Donnell said, more happily this time.

The Dragon went forward slowly and Andrei keyed in on the ship comm so Shodan's narrative could be heard by all. "Displaying front camera image on the screen in the cargo hold sir" said staff Sergeant Vrinks the Sensor operator.

Shodan swallowed and began as they moved forward. "We have to get up, that is warriors who are not yet warriors, early. We have to ride by what you call direhorses to this place, ascending to where the hanging boulders begin. Two come along in order to guard the horses, and take them back, when we are done. They stay at the bottom. With one who leads, usually Tsu'tey now, we are then supposed to climb up these boulders by any way we can until we reach the top." The Dragon continued forward and Andrei already knew he wanted to have a closer look. He was not too interested in the process of becoming an Ikran rider, but was delighted that this could be used as leverage against the Na'vi. They could simply fire a missile or two right here, and thus destroy the Omaticaya's and possibly a few other tribes' direct route to their banshees. As they came within a hundred meters of the boulders O'Connell raised the Dragon. When they were at the top the explanation resumed. "Once on top of the last boulder we have to jump for one of the vines suspended, and make our way up to the top of this relatively small floating rock." Andrei could see it, the vines, if you missed it was a long way down. "There has not been a death in twenty years." Great more blue monkeys were alive. He wondered what was said as remembrance for those souls 'An inglorious end, our children should ignore him.' Maybe that was it. The Dragon climbed "Once on top of the rock we have to cross the wood span, which connects this boulder to the mountain where the Ikran nest is." Andrei saw it looked like a large tree trunk had been fused into the two rocks, if you lost your balance, it was a long way down. The path was fraught with hazards, hazards humans would never take unless they absolutely had to.

Andrei had made up his mind "Captain O'Donnell drop us off at the entrance to the mountain, we will make our way up from there to the Banshee nest, and report to you on what we see sir, we may need you to come in guns blazing to rescue us so be ready."

"Got that Lieutenant, get your boys ready."

"Yes sir, Shodan you're with us." He grabbed an exopack and put the mask over himself.

He opened the door and walked through, Shodan followed him looking aghast, he noticed as he sealed the door behind him, and saw all the others wearing their exopacks. He grabbed his rifle, and checked the safety. He cocked the weapon he knew this could not be good. "You cannot kill the Ikran Andrei!" she said.

He tried to keep the peace "I don't plan to, we want to have a look that is all. If they attack us, we will not hesitate to defend ourselves. We value the lives of our people, almost as much as that rock we dig from the ground."

"No please, I understand you must be able to defend yourselves, but do not slaughter the whole nest! Do you know what that would do to the peace? There would be an immediate war if you did. Please tell the man in the strange place not to come except to rescue you!"

Andrei was reluctant, and at first confused by what she meant as to 'the strange place' but she must mean the cockpit. If it kept the scene from becoming ugly, and not thus losing a valuable contact he would take the risk, but he would not hesitate from mowing every last Banshee himself if it came to that. "Alright Shodan." He keyed in on his comm. "Captain do not come in guns blazing, we'll take the risk, just pick us off at where you are going to drop us off, at the mouth of the cave."

"Copy." O'Donnell did not ask any questions, he probably knew what had happened.

All of the men were wordlessly getting into position. Andrei and Shodan took the front places. They felt the helicopter turn, then start to descend gently. Finally it stopped and the ramp descended. The air of the planet cancelling out the terran atmosphere in the hold. Andrei ran down straight into the mouth of the cave, the men following him. Once safely inside they stopped and regrouped. Andrei silently counted them, they were all present. Shodan had a question "Why do you wear those things on your heads?" she asked. She obviously meant the caps.

Fike answered "So we know that the person wearing it is one of us, and it looks good, makes you look more professional." Andrei nodded, and Shodan had clearly not understood all of it, but nodded and continued. She had much to learn about human military culture, and how diverse it was.

"Shodan lead the way, no narration for this part is required." She went forward cautiously. Since she was in a uniform, and had not complained as he had told her how to wear it properly he was vaguely proud of her, but ready at any moment to gun her down without regret if she did what he suspected she would do and try and kill them. Maybe her people were waiting in ambush here to kill them, and destroy the Dragon. His thoughts soon faded as he tired himself out climbing the cave. Thankfully Shodan helped them out with the worst bits.

As they neared the top Andrei heard a running stream and saw more stalactites, and could hear the cry of Banshees. They climbed up a sloping bit, and the screams of Banshees mixed with a waterfall were unmistakeable. They stopped "Around that falling water is the Ikran nest, do not attract their attention or they will attack."

Andrei wanted to have someone go take a look. Who did he like least? Well he disliked all of them, but he chose Corporal Wainfleet, he looked dirty and stupid. "Corporal Wainfleet go have a look, leave your main weapon here. We'll look after it."

The man looked like he was going to argue but obviously remembering the lesson of Sergeant Rose, he put down his weapon, and said "Wish me luck guys." People wished him well in a way they never would to Andrei, and he went out." There were a tense two minutes as he was out, then he came back, wetter than when he went out, but okay. "There is a thin ledge, and it leads to a whole mess of banshees sir" he said to Andrei.

Andrei nodded "Right we are done here, let's go people." He was pleased. He had scoped out the first place of great religious significance to the Na'vi and could still do some more scanning in the area around Hometree after lunch. It was going to be a good day. That was what he had thought just as he had turned. He was the last in line, Shodan was first.

Behind him the flow of the water was interrupted and what sounded like flapping wings came behind him and the sound of nails on a stone floor. It could be only one thing. In a panic he jammed the safety off, and spun round aiming his AK200 rifle as he did so. It was a banshee, looking predatorily at him. It opened its mouth to scream, but Andrei fired at least ten bullets into its midsection. It stumbled back, bleeding, then dropped off the mountain. Andrei backed away from the entrance. He looked behind him to see Shodan looking appalled and all the men scanning with their weapons.

He looked back. There was nothing, then from the right, and from in front again came to more. In terror he screamed and emptied the rest of his magazine at them, moving back as he did. When the working parts slid to the rear showing an empty chamber, he tripped and fell, he was caught by Private Collins, who grudgingly helped him up. It was clear he had smacked the hornet's nest as another Banshee flew through and jumped straight on Private Collins. Two others killed it before it could hurt him, but more came through. There was firing everywhere, and Andrei fumbled as he reloaded. "Run!" he shouted, as soon as his weapon was reloaded, and they did, firing as they retreated. They ran down. A banshee followed them, Andrei was still last in line sp he fired to kill it. "Bitch!" he spat. As he ran again, it occurred to him that was his knew names for the banshees, or should be 'bitches.'

No more Bitches followed them from that point but Andrei had a sinking feeling they would know where to cut them off. However on the bright side, Shodan had not killed any humans. They retreated all the way to the bottom, and he heard a man yell and fire before he saw it. The others were joining in, Shodan was off to the side looking angry and helpless, torn between simply chastising the sky people or trying to kill every last one of them. Andrei aimed a flying bitch and fired. It took him his whole magazine to hit it. More and more came, and each time they were swatted down, but Andrei after had used up yet another clip knew they could not go on like this, and he did not want to have to gun Shodan down and lose a valuable source. "Everyone get back up the path halfway." Without waiting for anyone else he took off. He heard the firing fade and since there were no screams but only footsteps, everything had to be okay. He was sweating now and took a long drink as he panted from his camel-bak. He stopped when he thought he had reached the halfway point, every part of his boy aching, and he was still sweating. He swore in English, French and his native Russian. He slouched down, exhausted mentally and physically, whereas his men kept checking for danger.

"What the hell do we do now sir?" demanded Wainfleet angrily.

"We wait, until they lose interest in us, then we radio for pickup, the Captain won't abandon us. I'll try and get him." He tried but could not get a signal. He swore again. He knew he would not be listened to if he asked someone to go and try get a signal, it was useless anyway. He could have gone, but he was terrified and he knew no one, save an unsympathetic Shodan would have gone with him. He knew she was going to speak and take the last vestiges of control he had from the situation. He knew he should not have run first, or dropped from exhaustion, but he did not care, he was an ordinary person. He had pushed himself hard, and being human was thinking of himself, his mind was chaotic. He only cared if one these men died because it would look bad in a report. He hated them. They hated him, they had just been too chicken to do what Sergeant Rose did because they feared consequences.

Shodan spoke "Why did you have to kill all those Ikran?" she screamed tears in her eyes.

"Oh shut up!" Andrei shouted. "If we had not we would have been their lunch!" He was angry now, he stood up and looked at her. "So its okay for us to have our guts ripped out and eaten in front of you, hearing us scream in pain, begging in our mind for help because we don't have the air to. That's okay so long as we don't hurt one of your bitches? You and your people disgust me! You have no value for others!" The same all too often applied to his people but he was not going to admit it. He readied himself to gun her down.

The men had stopped murmuring, although Andrei could not see it ten percent of Shodan agreed with what Andrei had said, and wanted to tell him that. The other ninety percent of her retained her Na'vi education for respecting Eywa even if it meant sacrificing oneself to be food, all energy was borrowed. Her mind whirled in confusion, it was too much. She shouted and fainted. Andrei snorted in contempt.

"What did you mean earlier? Did you mean Banshees?" demanded Wainfleet two hours later. All of them were hungry, and now sitting, Shodan was still unconscious.

"You can call them Banshees, I call them bitches."

Wainfleet and the others laughed. "Hey" said Fike "That's a good name for them, why didn't we think of that?" Andrei did not join in the laughter. He was too sombre for that.

They waited until Shodan woke up another two hours later, her boots Andrei had noticed were scuffed. He stood up "Alright lets go back to the bottom and radio the Captain. No matter what happens we're getting out of here." He looked at Shodan. "We will drop you off back where we met this morning. I don't think we'll see you again." She simply nodded, she was too busy collecting herself. "Alright let's go."

After making the tiresome walk, their footsteps heavy, they reached the bottom. As Andrei had figured the Ikran had lost interest. He keyed in his comm. "Captain O'Donnell sir we're ready for pick up."

He knew what would come next and wanted it to be over with. "Lieutenant, what the hell happened? Is anybody hurt?" O'Donnell demanded in a cross but concerned voice.

"No sir, we're all okay we had some trouble with the..." he was about to say something rude but stopped himself "banshees. Please pick us up sir, I can explain on the way back to this morning's LZ."

On the chopper after having explained what had happened to Captain O'Donnell, who had shrugged and said it was okay, as long as nobody was hurt, Andrei turned to Shodan, was now silent. "We'll be arriving back at Hometree now Shodan, I think you will want to get out of that uniform" he said blandly. He felt a self loathing, not at all because of what he had done. He was dirty and sweaty, and he hated that.

She remained silent, and nodded. A few minutes later she said "No, I'll keep it. I don't think we will see each other again. I don't think we want to see each other again. This was though a unique experience. I want something to remember it by. I am now unique among my people. I alone have truly walked with the humans. I alone have seen what you do." She turned to face him, he was slightly engaged. "Besides these clothes, and feet protection among your people is a sign of belonging, of acceptance, something I like. I shall keep it, and on ceremonial days wear it with honor. I do not care what the tribe thinks. I alone have it. I will wear it with pride. Thank you for teaching me how to see your people, Lieutenant Andrei."

"You're welcome Shodan."

Thirty minutes later, he watched her run off into the night, the uniform cradled in her arms, boots around her neck. He had shown her how to fold it, and put it in her arms. He knew at that point that he would never see her again, and that now armed with her knowledge and experience, the uniform being an undeniable corroboration of the story she was about to tell, she would be accepted among her people. He was wrong on both counts.


	18. Chapter 18

_Part 18_

Andrei had asked everyone to write comprehensive reports, and he had proof read them all before allowing anyone to be dismissed. He had had to correct Private Raimes' report, it was not long enough. Andrei demanded a minimum of two healthy sized paragraphs, which were all supplied. He himself had not had time to finish his report by the time he needed to meet with the Colonel. Instead he sent in all of the men's reports, all of which blandly stated facts, the quality of language varying from person to person.

The meeting was in the Colonel's office, the change worried Andrei. He was even more worried when he got there. There sat the Colonel, in the light from his desk lamp and computer, casting a slight shadow upon him, that made the glare on his face all the more sinister. Andrei took a step backward and made ready to flee.

Colonel Miles Quaritch became aware that the look on his face must be the reason that Lieutenant Andrei Semyonov had taken a step back, but he did not alter his expression, what had happened was risky, he was not too pleased with the fact that he had lost his inside contact, from what he heard from the reports, but that was just of minor importance, and was not why he was frowning. "We've got a problem here Andrei, and it ain't you losing your inside woman." He said.

"What is it then sir" the young man asked nervously.

Quaritch maximised the tab "Come take a look, its Jake."

It was the video log of May 30th 2154 of Jake Sully, Avatar team. Quaritch had frozen the screen and on it was the face of Jake Sully wearing a Marine Corps t-shirt and starting to look unshaven and tired. He still looked like one of them, what was in the video suggested otherwise. Since Andrei was in effect Quaritch's Avatar it was necessary that he see this. It would mean his mission had assumed greater importance and the loss of his important even more important. "I know about what happened today. Well done for getting all that intel, I look forward to reading your report on it." Quaritch said this less brightly than usual, without Shodan, if he remembered their informant's name correctly, Andrei's expedition would be a simple mapping expedition whereas before it had had the potential to see off Doctor Augustine as it showed that there was need for Avatars when humans could do in three months what Avatars could not in seventeen.

He unfroze the screen, it was right at the beginning. "Okay" said the tired voice of Jake Sully "This is video log twelve, time is twenty one thirty eight." Doctor Augustine was performing some science related task in the background. Ms. Angry Pilot as Quaritch called Trudy Chacon in his mind had walked past Jake without even looking into the camera. Jake looked back at Augustine "Do I have to do this now? I mean I really need to get some rack."

"No now while it is fresh" she insisted getting on with her work, the rain pounding outside and the enclosed space there must have made it depressing.

"Okay well, location shack, and the days are starting to blur together."

Quaritch paused the video. "Uh oh" said Andrei.

"Uh-oh is right. He's starting to get absorbed in the dream world, but let's watch the rest. I just got to this part." He clicked the play function again.

"I'm training harder with Neytiri. I did some pretty tough shit to become a recon gyree back home, but its nothing compared to this. We have to do it all on foot, there is no safety net, no hospital. No one to catch you if you fail. I thought I would be able to teach them some stuff from my military training. But it turns out that we've got nothing compared to them. They are far better than us, more in touch with their surroundings. They could track any of our special forces guys, I mean damn. I'm like a complete novice here, even after all the shit I've seen. I tell you it's great learning all this amazing stuff, teaching me to see stuff I could never have seen before..." And on the video recording went, extolling the virtues of the Na'vi and saying that there was so much that humanity could learn from them and nothing that humanity could teach them. Conclusion: Jake sully had drunk the coolade. He was becoming one of them, and since he was one of Augustine's Quaritch could not order Jake home. In any case he believed aborting the mission would push Jake still further into the Na'vi camp. It was best to leave things exactly as they were and hope for the best.

"You thinking what I am thinking Andrei?" Quaritch asked, suddenly feeling the need to go to bed, he was getting old. Fifty two was not old but he was not young any more.

"I am thinking that although Mr. Sully has not yet succumbed to the Na'vi ways, he is so overawed by what they know by virtue of having such connection with nature, that he is in danger of becoming like Dr. Augustine and her crew, that is to say, human hating."

"Yes that is exactly what I am thinking." It occurred to Quaritch with great annoyance that Andrei's English was excellent, and he did not speak a word of Russian. "Et alors" he tried "Ca va bien?"

"Oui Mon Colonel, Je suis comme ci comme ca, á cause de mes homes, qui me n'aime pas de tout, mais on se debrouillera toujours" said Andrei.

Quaritch laughed "Damn you! I thought I could beat you there, your French is good just like your English"

He saw Andrei blush "Thank you sir."

Quaritch turned off his computer and got up, and walked out, Andrei following him "Why are you here Andrei instead of at some nice job on Earth, earning $1,000,000 a year as a banker or something? With your skills you could have done anything you wanted." He was serious, he was glad to have Andrei, glad to have his skills, and glad to see someone like him put in a position of command and doing well. Quaritch was afraid though that Andrei would get killed and in an instant all that wonderful knowledge he had spent accumulating would die with him.

They still walked and it was not till they were at Andrei's quarters that he had an answer. "Well sir, I wanted to be on the frontlines of the human struggle, to keep pumping back the blood that keeps us alive. I wanted to make a difference, not earn money. I wanted to fight for mankind, not just for Russia. Pandora is the only place I can do that."

Quaritch smiled briefly, if the word 'Russia' was replaced by 'America' those would be his exact sentiments. "Good night Andrei, you and your boys after today get a day off, but your back on full speed tomorrow."

Andrei was obviously grateful, he was tired in every way it was possible to be tired. "Thank you sir" and then he went to bed.

Quaritch for his part went to bed feeling a bit uneasy, but was pleased at the way intelligence was flowing, what he did fear was the war, the possibility of not seeing some faces anymore, or worse the overwhelming numbers of the enemy would see them expelled from Pandora; but it had to be done. There was no getting around it. That was the source of his fatigue he suspected, too many wars, and he was not looking forward to another one.

Things had not gone so well for Shodan. She had expected that by turning up in the clothes of Sky warrior, people would ask her questions, which would lead to stories, stories that would be sources of knowledge and understanding; Something, beyond being a good warrior which would lead to her becoming accepted. She had forgotten the prejudices her people felt towards the sky people, or rather she had hoped they would want to know more about them.

She had walked past the guard, for the first time with haughtiness on her face, as the guard she recognized as Ninat, stared in disbelief at what she was wearing. As Shodan later understood she had made the mistake of thinking that behind the disbelief was jealousy, and envy instead of hatred for that of which she now understood her people were largely ignorant. She was convinced though she could teach her people how to see, otherwise they were no better than the Sky people.

It had been time for evening soup, and she had gone to the normal collecting point to gather it. Everyone there had stared at her, and as they did she began to realize what danger she could be in. The stares were not of wonder, those were the looks of hatred. If the human reader is having difficulty imagining the reaction of everyone and eventually th deathly silence, that caused Shodan to fear for her life, the looks she was receiving would be the same a person would get walking into a synagogue wearing an SS uniform. First the looks were of astonishment, then of disapproval, then anger, and finally murderous intent. As she began to understand Shodan backed away, from the silent hated filled crowed, advancing steadily towards her. She looked for an exit, but realized as people closed around her that there was no escape. The looks of murder were enough to make her cry in terror and anguish, she would be murdered in a horrible way with no one to hear her screams, no one who cared.

She was now surrounded, and thought to remove her uniform if it would save her. "No!" she hissed aloud, and people looked at her in puzzlement and she knew why. How could she hope to stop them from doing what they would do? Who was she to try and tell them when she was so obviously a traitor to her race? But she would not remove the uniform, it was they who were in the wrong, not her. If a human like Jake was willing to strip himself of his human clothes, and she had seen on his first night, his body was screaming against its naturalness. He wanted to put on his clothes but he had not. In order to learn he was willing to go against his culture if it would bring him the knowledge he needed. She was willing to do that to. Even now the uniform, and its fabrics running against her skin felt unnatural, her feet felt strange feeling things they had never felt before, but she accepted it. With it she could begin to understand the humans, and how they thought. Now she was surrounded by people out to kill her. They stopped in almost perfect circle all three meters from her and glaring, some had their knives out ready to kill. There was no point fighting back. She waited passively for her death. Then the worst thing happened. She heard someone forcing themselves to the front, looked around and was faced with the indignantly pouting Tsu'tey.

"Why are you wearing that demon costume dwarf?" he spat, saliva going into her face.

More insolently than she meant to she said "I think that is the wrong question Tsu'tey. You should ask me how I got it, not why."

Pain flooded her thoughts as she was slapped across the face. She could hear laughter, it made her angry but also terrified, none of them would think anything of killing her. "You do not answer back dwarf!" said Tsu'tey.

She gathered herself she thought about answering but thought about covering herself and realized she should risk another slap "This is not a demon costume, it is the uniform of a human warrior." To have answered would have been to acknowledge wearing the costume of a demon.

This time it was a knee in her stomach. She could not cry out as all the air was forced from her. She struggled to regain her breath as Tsu'tey grabbed her by the shoulders and demanded an answer "Answer the question betrayer! Why are you wearing that?"

Her attraction for him had vanished, but she realized she should answer the question "I am wearing it because a sky warrior gave it to me." It was the minimal answer.

"How did you meet a sky warrior?" he demanded. He punched her, and she felt the pain, and the difficulty in thinking.

She smirked "I happened to come across several as they explored our world." Once again it was the minimal answer.

He now began to strangle her and still demanded answers "How did you get the costume of the sky people?" he shouted.

She whispered, it was all she could manage "A sky warrior gave it to me."

In a rage he squeezed harder, and now Shodan's survival instincts came into play, knowing it was reckless, but desperate to live for a few moments more she kicked him where it would really hurt, her boots causing more pain, than a simple foot ever could have.

It was Tsu'tey's turn to collapse in pain and clutch at the effected area, impotent unable to defend himself, suddenly looking pathetic and not fearsome. She felt certain even the shortest of the sky people could laugh at him. People looked on in shock as the mighty warrior was brought down by such a simple blow. They hesitated unsure what to do, but a few, mostly women, came forward and began beating her ruthlessly. Shodan initially tried to defend herself, but realized there was no point. She curled up and cried as the blows rained in on her damaging her body, and eventually she was grateful as she slipped into unconsciousness. Had she known that her ordeal was just beginning she would have been far from grateful.


	19. Chapter 19

_Part 19_

After a day of rest Andrei Semyonov and his unit had set off for the area around Hometree. The days were becoming blurred together for him as well, it simply meant he ceased to note things as carefully as he might have, yet today would not just be another day. Today would be a difficult and trying day.

The Helicopter rose from the base early as Andrei and his men, who now tolerated him set off from the base, towards the distant destination, one of the old LZs that would allow them to explore the ground around Hometree in more detail. This time however, and this was why Andrei was more tense than usual, they would explore in the direction of Hometree, trying to get near it. In every available space he had, Andrei, as well as all of his men had crammed spare ammunition. It was going to be an exhausting day, so the Colonel had given them permission to come home early. Even the Red Army choir, which normally filled with confidence and energy, merely contained his agitation, and badly at that.

As for Shodan, when she had awakened, she found herself being dragged, by two warriors. As she gained consciousness, she looked from left to right. They were simply two female warriors, and not as strong as men, but still deadly. She quickly regained control of her body, noticing her uniform was still on her. The memory of what had happened to her bringing tears to her eyes. She had never had a good life. She had never known anything else, but she had seen the way other people lived and knew that because of her stature she had been cheated of something she thought she was entitled to. Maybe Eywa did not think so. If that was so, then, she thought angrily, Eywa was not worth worshipping, she cared only for perfection and balance, and the individual be damned. They were insignificant.

She assessed how she could get out this hold. They were dragging her deeper into the forest, to where she knew not, but whether it be exile or for punishment it would be a terrible place, and she had to get away. She noticed that it was daylight. She thought of Andrei and the other Sky warriors, no soldiers, maybe they would save her. She knew that was unlikely, she was on her own, probably being dragged off to be bound and eaten by beasts as punishment. She kept silent and let herself be dragged, but by thinking about the gross lack of fairness of her situation she worked her hate energy to a fever pitch. She would stand up, and then elbow the two and try and run for it. What she would do afterward she did not know, but she knew she had to escape, she doubted she was being taken to the tree of voices to get an education in how to be one of the people.

At the same time Andrei and his men finally gathered to at the back of the Dragon as Captain O Donnell had announced that they were going to be on top of the LZ in three minutes and should be ready to go out running.

That was when Shodan had decided to act. She heard the roar of the metal beast, the gunship. She could not believe her good fortune, the sky people were coming, she could run to them, for what she knew not. In the end if she complained about what was happening to her, all would do was destroy any chance of her people and the sky people being at peace. She, unlike her people wanted a peace that satisfied both. Nonetheless they could guard her from her own people. The two warriors guarding had paused and looked round as they heard the alien roar, and she seized the moment. She sprang up and elbowed the one on her right in the stomach. The shock of her blow caused that one to let go, and not a second later Shodan's right hand was flying towards her other captor using the fact that her left arm was held down as a pivot and smashed the nose of the other, which caused her to let go. Before she could assess her surroundings properly or where the sky people were coming from, she ran as fast as she could. She never knew she had such speed.

As luck would have the place she was running towards was the exact LZ that Andrei had chosen that morning, and she ran towards it just as the gunship slowed down for the final approach. Andrei felt the gunship moving down by the wonderfully strange sensation in his stomach and he smiled slightly beneath his exomask, wishing he had a gas mask to make him look scary. It was like a roller coaster. Finally the helicopter ramp was lowered and as the gases came in he saw the bright lush outside world, and before the ramp was even fully down, he had shouted "GO!" and they were off.

As they emerged running from the helicopter they peeled off in a line scanning the area with their weapons. Andrei had affirmatively decided on his AK, and was thankful that he was not in his own country's Army which despite reform, and despite a cleaning of the Army ranks suffered from Dedovschina. He had experienced problems like that in the RDA's Security force, but when he had taken action, his commander had stood by him.

When everyone had given thumbs up, they began to advance, not for long. They had just gotten beyond the edge of the clearing and Andrei was bitter when it happened that O Donnell could not provide air support, having switched off his engines. They all heard something running, and Andrei dashed for the nearest cover, a prominent boulder, which he prayed was not some carnivorous plant. Why were plants on this damn planet carnivorous anyway, and why did the Na'vi tolerate them. "Stupid hippies" he said (replace stupid with -ing and you know what he actually said. He saw listened and heard someone cry out in breathless terror, he thought he recognized it as Shodan. "It's Shodan, hold your fire!" he shouted, but neither he nor his men relaxed, what was she running from?

Shortly after this there came an arrow whistling through the air, barely missing Corporal Wainfleet. However Andrei observed it had been aimed at Shodan's waist not at Corporal Wainfleet. He aimed his rifle and the forest and saw two Na'vi women emerge from it. Without giving any commands, he opened up on full automatic, and the others joined in. The Na'vi were tough creatures and these two died hard, but Andrei felt like laughing as he saw the two be cut down mercilessly by gunfire, and hear them scream in panic as the armor piercing bullets zipped through them. It was an incredible waste as they spent a full clip on the two warrioresses, but they had killed them. Andrei felt no pity, he had seen too many people impaled by arrows, there were "10 deaths by Na'vi every year" as the Colonel had told him and the other new arrivals, when Andrei had come to Pandora. He was confident those two were dead, he instead turned his attention to Shodan, who was still wearing her uniform, but it was worse for wear than it had been when Andrei had given it to her. He wondered why for a moment then it occurred to him that of course the Na'vi would never had tolerated her wearing the clothes of a human, and learning the ways of a human, as the humans did the opposite for the Na'vi. It was a very tentative toleration albeit, at least by the Security Forces, and the Administrator, but at least they tolerated it. That was more than could be said for the Na'vi.

Andrei approached Shodan who by now had fallen onto her knees and was sobbing, the tears seemed to flood from her eyes, and Andrei wondered exactly why. "Shodan what happened?" he asked neutrally. He still did not trust her, he felt no bond with her, he cared for her well being only out of necessity, it would not sadden him in a personal way if she were to die.

"Thank you" she said and continued sobbing without looking at him.

That was not good enough for Andrei, but he managed to ask his question patiently. "Shodan, what happened?"

She looked up, and the tears still poured. She told him what had happened, and without her saying it, Andrei knew that there was no conceivable way she could go back to her people. 'If' thought Andrei 'You could call them 'her people' in the first place.' Although he did not care for her personally, in principle Andrei was disgusted at the way she had been treated. "Oh boy" he muttered to himself, wondering what they should do next. Continuing with their patrol, could be useful especially with a Na'vi. However it occurred to him that with Shodan in this state, she would be quite useless, and would insist on coming with them, and he could not leave her alone until she had called down, otherwise she might well betray them to her people, and then that would mean all sorts of trouble.

So Andrei Semyonov made the most independent and impulsive decision of his entire life. He turned to Corporal Wainfleet and said "Contact the Dragon immediately Corporal while I talk to her, we are taking her back to the base."

The other man understood but obviously could not believe it had been said. "What sir?" Andrei was amused that he was actually being called sir.

"You heard me Corporal, we are going to get her on the Dragon, take her back to Hell's Gate, and show her how humans truly live. If you are asked to explain yourself in this regard pass it on to me. I will take full responsibility for any trouble incurred" he said and then turned to Shodan. "Would you like to see where we live?"

She too was taken aback by the question and Andrei temporarily questioned the wisdom of his decision, and wondered why he was doing it in the first place. "What, what do you mean?" Shodan asked.

Then it occurred to him. He was not doing it for her benefit to make her feel welcomed, or even to build greater trust between humans and Na'vi. He was doing it as an insult to Dr. Spellman who had assaulted him and was outraged when he realized this time he was not going to get away with it. He was doing it to insult Jake Sully, wherever exactly he was now, who in spite of being crippled like all of the grunts around him, saw him as a spineless nerd, who did not command any respect because he was not 'a hard man.' Andrei could only do three pull-ups, and had only gotten to Pandora because of who his parents were, and the fact that he was highly recommended for his earnestness, and that even though he was weaker than he was supposed to be, he tried very hard. He was doing it to insult all the people in his life who had told him he could not do this, or have this or that, because he was not a certain way. It occurred to Andrei how ironic it was. He was in the Company Security Forces, and under military discipline, but more than ever he had a chance to be him, and not be told what he should be. "Yes our place, our city, our version of Hometree, you will see what your people have never seen because they refuse to see. You will see all the technological miracles that humanity possess. You will also see how polluted we are, and the cost of this. However maybe you will learn something from it, and realize that just because you were told things were a certain way, and could only be a certain way, and you would only be able to do things if you were a certain way, is not true. You should be you, on the inside and in public." It alarmed Andrei to think he actually shared a bond with this Na'vi. Both were rejects from their community for one reason or another. She was told because she was an abnormality she could not get ahead, and must accept being stigmatized and that because she was, it was her fault that she was stigmatized rather than the fault of the people inflicting suffering on her. Andrei supposed he wanted to uplift people like him wherever they were found, even if they were not human.


	20. Chapter 20

_Part 20 : __Indeed__ it is back again, and reviews are appreciated, they assure me I am not talking to myself. So Andrei's time in the bush is coming to a close, and we can start move once again with events of the movie._

Colonel Miles Quaritch could not believe what he was hearing. "Wait a minute you are telling me that Lieutenant Semyonov wants to bring one of those savages back here Major? He actually wants to do that?"

The Major in question was Major Darwin, the ex-Royal Marine who Quaritch detested. He could not stand the man, yet he knew how to flatter the administrator and be deferential to Quaritch when speaking to him. So Quaritch could only guess at the man's perfidy through what complaining subordinates passed on to him. Normally he would not have talked him, but it was absolutely necessary. The communications tower had been surprised when it got a call from Captain O'Donnell saying that Lieutenant Andrei Semyonov wanted to bring a Na'vi back into the base to show her around. According to what Major Darwin had just told him, Andrei wanted her to eat human food, and watch a movie. Quaritch wondered if his faith in the Russian had been misplaced, and whether like anyone who seemed to go near them, Andrei had become enthralled by the all-perfect Na'vi. "Yes sir" responded the other "He wants to come here with a Na'vi woman and do all of those things that I just told you sir. According to Captain O' Donnell sir, he is quite adamant that it be done. He also wants you to meet her sir."

Quaritch unintentionally glared daggers at the other man "What?"

The toady was temporarily caught off guard "Well sir, According to Captain O'Donnell Lieutenant Semyonov thought that you would be interested in meeting the female Na'vi so that you could see that they were people that if they were so inclined could be reasoned with. He also thought that since our man in the Omaticaya tribe met their chief, she should be introduced to our equivalent of the chief. While Captain O' Donnell said that is the administrator he thinks that since she was raised in 'a warrior-caste society' I think was the phrase the young Lieutenant used, she would be more respectful towards you. Sir."

Quaritch wanted to be rid of the man opposite him, he relaxed his glare and said "Fine go back to your post Major, I'll think about this myself." The other man got up, impeccably saluted, and left, probably to go bad-mouth him to a someone who toadied to him, he had no idea. What was even more unknown to him is why Andrei of all people seemed to have been taken in by the Na'vi or at least this particular Na'vi. Maybe it was love? Maybe it was a trap? Or maybe Andrei really did think that a Na'vi should see what humans did, he had no idea, and Colonel Miles Quaritch did not like being in the dark. That is why, against all his gut feelings, he decided to contact the Dragon himself, and find out what was going on.

In the meantime the Dragon had landed on the LZ, and Lieutenant Andrei Semyonov, and all the men had their masks off. Shodan was sitting by herself and Andrei was standing by the Comms unit. He had straightened his uniform as best he could, mentally preparing himself for the call he knew he must take. In return he had learned a lot already from Shodan, which finished his mapping expedition, in this region at least. She had told him where all hazardous plants were to be found, and in particular nests of hostile animals. He had shown her using the mini command map in the cockpit on a 3-D setting where they were.

She had been further amazed by the technology and had tried to grab the holographic images and could not understand when her hands had come away empty. He had explained to her that it was a projection of light, and that it merely combined together to form images, so it was not real but did indicate where things were. She had asked to see Hometree and he had shown it to her, she was awed by it, and began crying. "What wrong?" he had asked without sounding the least bit concerned.

"It is a miracle, truly a miracle, how can such a thing be possible, it is just so…other…there are no words, no ideas within the language that have been developed to describe such a thing. To be able to see where one needs to go without a guide, without having had to learn the path, being able to use it to learn exact location and which direction to go, my people lack such things…" She sighed and began to cry for another few minutes, evidently thinking about what had happened to her, and maybe, Andrei hoped, she was beginning to pity her people who refused to see what was right in front of them. Andrei reflected that that sort of sentiment, although applied in a different way could have come from Doctor Augustine. He was becoming unbalanced again, maybe there were things humans could learn from the Na'vi, such as preserving the environment. His species had been very bad at doing that. They could travel to Pandora, set up a city of one billion on the moon, and even terraform Mars, so that now the 300 millions who lived on Mars could breath the air. Andrei had watched a program on Martian development before he left, and although forest and oceans were years away, there were irrigation projects, land was being cultivated, people were breathing the air, and walking outside. Humanity had failed Earth though, they had abused it, sometimes without really wanting to but seeing no other viable option, others had simply not cared. Only massive government intervention in 2100 had saved the world from a complete disaster. The Na'vi lived with their planet and did not exploit it. They adapted without technology. But they were stagnant. They were a young people, younger than humanity, by at least two thousand years. Perhaps in tow thousand years they would have become more like humanity, but he doubted it. They refused to change, their culture remained static, their ways frozen, they reacted preached learning and looking into a person's soul, and shot at human patrols without provocation or attempting to find out why the humans mined. They failed to learn from the humans, insisting that it was only humans who could learn, and refusing to acknowledge that the humans were not just there to explore, but needed something to keep them there, unobtanium. He also hated how they would screech that the humans were defiling the planet, as Security personnel defended themselves from Carnivores. When confronted with this their justification was 'You are not of Eywa.' Yes the Na'vi did not know what racism was, the planet somehow giving them a common language, but how they behaved humans was blatantly racist and the science team did not realize it. Andrei could not tolerate it.

Almost as soon as Shodan finished crying a computer generated female voice that tried but failed to be sexy said 'Incoming SAT COM from Hell's Gate; Security Operations.' It was the Colonel. Andrei breathed in deeply, composing himself. He heard some electric static and a bleep and from behind him he heard the Colonel's voice "I need a status report Andrei what is going on over there?"

As he turned to face the Colonel, Andrei smiled broadly as Shodan yelped back fright not understanding how the Colonel could communicate to him face to face without actually being there. It was unfortunate as he responded while having to contain laughter, and he knew he was seriously stretching the Colonel's trust. He also hated the idea that his patron, who he felt a distant filial love for, would think that he was doing something he should not be by overstepping the mark. "Uh, our source has confirmed for us all locations of potentially hazardous plants and animals in the vicinity of the Omaticaya Hometree. That is pretty much everywhere sir." Andrei leant down into the Comms unit which was contantly having the update of the TACMAP loaded up into it. He punched in the appropriate buttons to send in the map to the Colonel. "As you will see sir there are very few gaps and none of them are sufficiently wide to move a substantial ground force through sir, so I would say the areas which have a red coloring imposed over them should be pacified using the most extreme methods available to us sir, if it comes to that." He paused and gulped, waiting for the Colonel to respond, he had sounded like he was about to laugh all through that, and maybe had suggested a bit too much. He was conscious that his face was now a mask of anxiety.

"Well that is all very well Andrei and for it you are to be commended, but you had better have a good explanation Mister for wanting to bring one of the indigenous back here, to see our stuff, she could well be a spy, or kill us, and in any case it is highly unorthodox and may be too much of a shock for her. Why would you even want to bother, it is not like those savages can understand anything that is happening."

"Well sir, I would agree with you for most of them, and they are no better than animals" the reader will of course note that Shodan could speak English and knew that she was being talked about in depreciating terms, but after what she had heard her people say about the humans she was not surprised that the humans felt the same way about the Na'vi as the Na'vi did the humans. At least the humans were discussing bringing her to their home, her people would never have dreamed doing the same for humans, never, that is why the humans were only tolerated when they were in false bodies. "However she has been abused by her tribe since she was born, they recently tried to take her out and feed her to the wild only this morning because she was wearing a human uniform. She has been reluctant and slow to adapt, but she is trying sir. This is our best chance to subvert Dr. Augustine. I do not intend to do much sir, merely for you and she to have a brief interview and then for her to see a movie, that would be it sir, then we will take her back here. I myself am reluctant, but I think if we try, at least we can say we tried. She cannot persuade her people to do what we want them to do, her standing is far, far too low for that sir, but at least we can say to the scientists, with honesty, we are better than them." Again Shodan was slightly angry that such superior tones were being used when she had seen his people tear up the mother without regret or care, and knew from Andrei that humans were capable of terrible violence towards each other, the scale of which, and even some of the acts would be inconceivable among her people. However she was kept down because of her height, and they had threatened to do to her what had not been done in ten generations of warriors, and before that it had been thirty generations. Killing one of the people was not done, unless that warrior had already killed one of the people or hurt the mother without regard.

"Alright, but no more than that Andrei, we are not moving in with these people, nor they with us, but come on home, I will meet you there. Quaritch out." The screen faded out leaving the RDA symbol imposed on a blue screen.


	21. Chapter 21

_Part 21 in which Shodan comes to Hell's Gate, meets the Colonel, sees a movie, and finally parts ways with Andrei_

The Dragon flew above the treetops. It was flying high to discourage any Na'vi from attacking it, and Lieutenant Andrei Semyonov sat with Shodan in the Pilot compartment of the gunship as it headed back for home. "Where is your home, what is it, I have never seen it before" said Shodan.

Andrei thought for half a second "It is a city, where machines spew forth fire that melts the hardest rock, and the most durable metals and turns them into something else. It is where people live, sleep, eat and do other things. It has more of things such as that" he said pointing to the holographic map "as well as other devices that use natural forces for human convenience. Such things as we do are not possible in the realm of what is it you call the planet, mother?"

"Eywa" Shodan said "The planet lives and regards each of its people in equality, and protects the people and teaches it how to love all the things even hostile. She is wonderful, when we connect with the forest we can see things, as I now understand you are something, I do not know the word, incapable of, we can hear our ancestors, and know what passed before. They and everything else will always live through her." She was somewhat dreamy eyed when she said it.

"Yes regards everyone as equal except you, and teaches the people to love all things except for my people, simply because we do not fit into normality. Your mother inspires the planet to attack us and kill us, and that is why we destroy everything, to keep ourselves safe." He stopped, why was she still a believer after everything. Suddenly Andrei saw the plumes of smoke and fire from the two facilities in Hell's Gate "There it is" he said pointing through the windows to the outside.

Shodan followed his finger and saw two giant and wide grey lines extending up into the sky their heads pouring forth flame and smoke, she could also worked out what looked like a barrier surrounding the place, as well as other grey, or drably colored structures within the barrier. There was also a large flat surface taking up much the space within the barrier, and as they neared the compound Shodan saw that is was being used by the methods of going from place to place the Humans had. Andrei spoke to her "You need to follow me straight into the base when we land, the only Na'vi these people are used to seeing are hostile ones, and I think they will shoot you on sight. So stay with us or you will die!" With that he put on his exopack. Everyone else donned their exopacks and grabbed their weapons. Andrei knew that they were going to hustle Shodan to the Colonel's office, and then Andrei's men would be free for the rest of the day. "Alright Shodan when that ramp goes down, you stay with us, do not stop." The Dragon landed, and Shodan could see all the humans bracing themselves, bending down very slightly. Then the metal path out of the helicopter began to extend, and the Eywa's air mixed with human air, and as soon as it was fully extended Andrei shouted "Move! Move!" and suddenly they were running towards one of the gray structures. Shodan could not help but look around in awe. She had never seen anything like it, there were no plants, only metal, crushed rock beneath her feet, and fire and smoke. She jogged with the humans, easily keeping pace with them, and looked around in awe to see the giant metal men that she had heard about walking around with weapons in their hands. Humans in brightly colored clothing ran everywhere, or performed tasks. More warriors were standing guard over them, talking to each other, until they saw her, in which case they stopped and looked at her. Their faces were blank beneath their masks but she suspected they were hostile. She saw the large yellow metal vehicles she had heard of carrying the rocks the humans were after. It was driving towards one of the large metal pipes belching smoke and fire. She looked to see they were almost at the entrance to a large structure. There were humans here, and all were staring at her, wondering what she was doing there, and obviously nonje too happy that she was. She not even Andrei was happy about it. From what she understood, the only reason he and the Chief Warrior had brought her back here was so they could use this to shame the one the humans called Grace. Suddenly they were inside the doors, and they had been shut without anybody closing them, which was strange to her still. Then the planet's air flooded out, and the human air came in. All the humans removed their masks and placed them on their backs.

Andrei with a sigh of relief, opened the door and turned to Shodan to say "Shodan stay with us, or you will be shot, I have no doubt." Then he stepped thorugh and all the others followed him. Shodan had to bend down to get in and barely managed to avoid bumping her head. When she was inside, she had to keep down to avoid her head bumping into the roof, and since she figured that would happen, kept a hand on her head to cushion her skull. She had also stepped into a different existence. Unlike in Hometree everything here was metal, and there was lighting in the ceiling that was not made of flame. She also noticed there was a lot of what the humans called writing everywhere, and she could read some of it, but little though. One sign said _For your health and safety, carry an exopack at all times_. Yet what struck her most was the very angular nature of the human habitations. It was all so exact, too exact to be natural. They had contrcuted things exactly as they wanted them. She also saw the variety of clothing humans wore. The human warriors had only one set of clothes that marked them out as warriors, no soldiers she reminded herself, and the non-warriors all wore a variety of clothing. All were staring at her in fear and hostility and they walked through the corridors. She saw a woman in white pass them and pause in wonder at what was happening, and obviously not believing her eyes. "Who are you?" she asked, but Shodan had walked on having to keep with the group before she could answer. Andrei in the meantime was cursing the fact that a scientist had seen Shodan, he would explain it was an experimental Avatar for, what was the Sergeant name? Sergeant Rose. He had shot her, she had disobeyed orders, she was in a SecOps jail. No scientist would bother checking it out. The Colonel had told him the Sergeant would be returned to Earth for what she had done and a warning placed in her file.

First they reached the armory. "Alright men, turn in your arms, and then you are free. I will make sure by myself, that she gets back to where she belongs."

"Hooah sir" said Private Fike, for the first time with respect, as according to rank they queued up to turn in their weapons. Andrei went first, turning in his AK-200, signing it off. The armorer was wondering what the hell a Na'vi was doing in the base and he looked like he wanted to kill her. Andrei was keeping his Moisin Nagant pistol with him in case he had to. He then turned to Shodan when he was done and said "Follow me."

Colonel Miles Quaritch was busy at routine work at his desk, but he found it hard to concentrate. Soon Andrei would show up with their informant. He was for once not sure what to say. He had never met a Na'vi before, except his ex-wife in Avatar form, or the hostile ones he had encountered on his first week on the planet. He wondered, as he signed off a requisition form for more ammunition, and the manufacture of twenty new rifles, how he should introduce himself. What would she be like? It was going to awkward.

Then he heard been a beep on his desk and before he pressed the button the answer it, he knew what it was going to be about. "Sir. It's Lieutenant Semyonov with our guest sir. She has been instructed on what to call you. We attend your approval to enter or not."

"Come in Andrei" he said gravely, trying to hide the fact that he was nervous. He then figured out that he was nervous because he hoped, maybe just maybe, if the administrator approved of it, as he was not too sure what to do himself, they could use this interview as a stick to beat the science department with, and force them to actually do what they were supposed to do, that is negotiate the resettlement. Maybe it was wrong to force them off their land, to mine for ore. However Miles Quaritch never thought about that much, all he knew was he had a job to do, and it would be easy for him to do without any ethical considerations as these were the people who had killed the PLA sergeant, whose body was never recovered, whose name he never learned, who would never go home, and never eat another Beijing duck. For some reason, Quaritch had thought that if there was a heaven, which he doubted, that Sergeant would have wanted to start his meal with a Beijing duck, with pancakes, hoisin sauce, cucumbers and scallops. That sort of man should have died in his sleep, in a nice bed, in peaceful surroundings.

These thoughts were driven out of his head by the sound of the doors to his office opening, and in stepping both Andrei and the female Na'vi. Andrei had been right, she was short. She was very tall by human standards, but short by Na'vi standards. She was wearing a dirty human uniform, which she had made some obvious efforts to look good, but had failed. She was busy looking everywhere with the awe of a baby. Then she noticed him and made the Na'vi gesture that meant something and said "I see you the Colonel Quaritch."

It was obviously meant to be respectful, but in a human context it was awkward and Andrei said harshly "Shodan, you did not have to try to hard."

"I am sorry for my…" she could not find the word and gave up.

"Have a seat" said Quaritch not smiling, the deeper they got into this the more this interview seemed like a mistake and Andrei seemed to notice it as he looked at Quaritch with eyes that told him he was very sorry. "Anyway Shodan, you are here, because, none of us soldiers has ever met a Na'vi who was not hostile, and Avatars do not count. So, what do you think of humanity?" he said looking up into her eyes.

She seemed to cast around for support that she was not going to get, and knew then said nervously, obviously not entirely fluent in English, though pleasingly proficient. "Well I personally have feelings which are mixed about humanity. I see that you are much like us in appearance, except you have another finger, you are shorter, and you do not have that which can make bonds. You can make the same noises we can, you too cannot eat things which are made of metal. However you live entirely within metal and stone, only sitting, and lying on things soft. You also are what Andrei has called technologically advanced, and I think that is very interesting. You also have a different honor code. Whereas a Na'vi warrior charges in to prove himself and this is thought normal and good, for humans it is generally thought to be stupid and combat actions should be done with a mind to the group, and helping the group. You also communicate with each other far more, have more training on how to work together. Yet you also destroy the…" she became more nervous, as she realized that she was being awkward and not saying things which were relevant, but merely talking. "I and all of my people think you destroy too much, although I now understand what you dig up is necessary for your survival. You try and solve things in such a way as to be completely dominant and not necessarily come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. You hope to win everything. You also are a more diverse species. You do not all have a single language, or even a single writing system. Humanity has great creative instincts, but ones which are just as, or even more destructive. I however differ in one respect from my people. I wish to understand your people and get to know them better. My people do not, you are unfamiliar, you are short, you are weak physically, to them you are cowardly, incapable, they wish to know nothing. We only want to teach, not to be teached." Andrei winced at this incorrect grammar.

"Well thank you for that Shodan. What I am really interested in though is knowing how we can get your people to move from their home, without a single Na'vi or human dying."

Shodan appeared to be shocked "You want my people to leave Hometree?"

Quaritch kept his cold stare and was pleased to see even she was afraid of him "Yes we do. Under your tree is much of that rock which we desire. It is the reason the tree can grow so tall. We want that, if we do that humanity will greatly benefit. Not just the few thousand we have here on this planet, but the billions of our people on our planet. Therefore we want you to move so we can conduct the extraction of this rock in peace. How do we get your people to move?" Quaritch was also pleased to that Andrei was obviously in agreement.

"We would never give up Hometree, it has been the home of the Omaticaya since thirty generations after the first songs. Only it could be our home. We would never move, nothing, no amount of food, nor connection with the planet could make us."

Well that was not good, it meant that Jake would never get anywhere no matter how much he did to win the trust of the natives. Quaritch looked up, with a resigned look on his face "Well that is a pity, because we were hoping we could get to an arrangement on this." He then thought of another question "How do you like wearing our uniform?"

She seemed confused then answered "Oh, I am unused to having so much fabric on me, and of such strange material, and of having things which protect my feet. Yet I do not mind it. It makes me feel for once like I belong to something, that there are others who will protect me, because I have this on me."

That response was painfully naïve, but slightly touching nonetheless. "Alright thank you, Andrei you may now take her to see the movie."

"Yes sir" said the younger man and stood up, Shodan was about to stand up when she said "Sir, you are the one that is called Quaritch?"

Quaritch was puzzled by this question "Yes I am, why?"

"Well we heard from Tsu'tey often why he hates the Sky people, it is because you killed his father. His father was known as a mighty warrior. It is…an honor to meet you. Thank you for your time."

Andrei went pale, as Quaritch began staring daggers at Shodan frightening her, before recalling where he was and saying "Um, yes thank you, please do take her to the movie Andrei." Andrei hussled Shodan out of the room in an ungracious hurry. That night was not something he was proud of. He had killed a boy's father before his very eyes and now that boy had grown up to be a man, bent on revenge on the humans, and that day they had killed at least ten Omaticaya, maybe more. Miles Quaritch did not like to be told about that day, and it certainly was of no comfort to him that the up and coming chief was out to get him personally, and by extension all of the humans on this planet. He undoubtedly had influence with the chief and would never consent to such a humiliation. It could mean only one thing, war. Miles Quaritch did not like war.

"I do not think that went too well Andrei" Shodan said as they walked towards the viewing theater which had been set aside for their use that afternoon.

"Don't worry about it" Andrei comforted her unconvincingly. It had gone badly, but at least the Colonel knew directly now what the Omaticaya tribe were think that had been the point. Andrei just hoped his career was not over.

"What is a movie?" Shodan asked. Andrei had to pause to think as they walked.

He then said "Imagine a picture. No you see what we are doing now. Imagine looking in on it, seeing everybody else, except a movie usually summarizes what happens over a long period of time into a brief time span. The movie we are watching today tells the events of ten months in two hours, and it does so very well."

He could see that she was still confused but had obviously decided to see for herself what it was.

"What is this movie called?" Shodan asked.

"_Glory_" answered Andrei. It is about the American Civil War, and how a group of dark skinned soldiers must overcome the prejudice of many light skinned soldiers. One more thing the people on the screens will look real but they are not. They are false. They were real, but on the screen they are not in body, do not attempt to touch or speak to them. They will not respond, and their actions are predetermined. Shodan still obviously did not understand. Then they reached the movie theater.

Some time later Shodan was dizzy when she stumbled by Andrei as they emerged from the movie theater. "Once again there are no words I know which can describe that experience. It was not of this world, or rather of the natural Na'vi world. It was of Earth, but not of the mother.

"Yes I am aware of that Shodan" said Andrei tiredly "Now let us get you home, if they will accept you back home."

"Somehow I doubt that" said Shodan. Andrei made sure Shodan was brought back, again in the Dragon to an acceptable Landing Zone. All she said to him was "Goodbye" without even looking at him. He did not even say anything; he was slightly relieved to be rid of her. They would next see each other when he was looking at her down the reflex sight of his rifle, but that was during the final assault.


	22. Chapter 22

_Part 22, Andrei's path begins to converge with that of Jake Sully's_

Andrei's mapping expedition was wound up two weeks after he bade farewell to Shodan. He had spent the fourteen days mapping the Hallelujah mountains, yet staying away from the epicenter of the flux vortex, as apparently that place was holy to the Na'vi, and that meant the planet had a vested interest in protecting it, so a direct reconnaissance there would be suicide. He had had his men explore mountains along the periphery, to the point that the mountains were known but not the ground. Andrei in his concluding report had marked it as 'likely extremely hostile, use utmost caution, if any path is to cleared for mining this region eventually the entire flux vortex should be expunged.' He did not like to take chances. He would have been sentimental about Pandora, if everything on it and possibly in it were not trying to kill him all the time. This had been on July 14th when he finally called it done, in accordance with the Colonel's orders. All the French employees had been celebrating Bastille day, and so there had been an agreeable dinner to go to when he was done. He had taken advantage of his three day furlough by sleeping a lot, playing computer games, and reading, in all how he wished he could spend his life. Andrei Semyonov did not like to work, but his job was one he liked, and he had comfortably settled back into his old desk job, working for the Colonel. To make matters even better, he learned the day he got back to his desk that the Colonel was grateful for the intelligence Andrei and his men had provided.

Andrei had been called in around midday on July 18th to the Colonel's office. The Colonel had been sitting at his desk, finishing some work, before he looked up at Andrei and smiled lightly "Relax, you do not have to be at attention all the time." Andrei had obeyed, but having his feet together was his natural posture. The Colonel had finished and looked up "In addition to what Jake has given us Lieutenant, your information has not only corroborated it, but even in many cases provided more than Jake. I would say that while he was busy learning to be one of them, you instead tried to understand them, and tried to make one of them understand us. The fact is that even though you succeeded in the latter, since your girl was held in such low regard by her people it makes no difference. We have a war ahead of us son." Andrei knew that the Colonel wanted to get to something else than a summary of his activities. "However your mapping expedition tells us a lot we need to know about our upcoming campaign. You will have to once again make the transition from bureaucrat to soldier Andrei. However I have every confidence you will manage the transition. You showed originality, courage, and skill in your mission, so did every one of your squad." Suddenly the Colonel beamed, something Andrei had never seen him do before "So in recognition of your services…" he then reached into a drawer, and pulled out nine separate plastic bags. "…I have decided to promote you all by one rank. Congratulations, Captain Semyonov." Andrei was surprised, and nearly overcome with joy, he had not expected this. Before he could stop himself he was shaking the Colonel's hand and said "Thank you sir, I request permission to immediately pass these promotions on to my men in person sir." Andrei let go of the Colonel's hand and the other man nodded his head, and gestured to the door "By all means, but be as quick as you can, there is still much work to be done." Andrei had come to attention "Yes sir", then he had turned and left, his heart soaring. All the men had been happy about being promoted, and were even happy to see Andrei had been promoted, congratulating him on his Captain's bars. It also meant his pay had gotten better. People on Pandora earned six times the pay of their earth counterparts. Whereas on Earth he would be earning $40,000 a year, at the end of this month he would draw $20,000 in pay. So that was another positive aspect. After this euphoric day, he settled back in his bureaucratic life, and ran his day the same way he had before he had been given the mapping expedition. In all everything had turned out all right, but he was conscious of the gathering Storm clouds of war, and wondered who would set off that storm first, the humans or the Na'vi. War came sooner than anyone on the base wanted. Nobody wanted a war, not really. But it came, and it came in a way both Quaritch and Andrei had feared.

It was August when the news came. Quaritch had expected that Jake was losing his grip on what his task was, as to whose side he was on. He was absorbing himself too much in the Na'vi world without spending enough time in the human world. Quaritch watched the video log every night. Sully's appearance had deteriorated, he was not eating as much, his hair had grown longer. It looked like he no longer even showered. He was too focused on impressing the Omaticaya, and in the process forgetting himself.

However it was here for the first time that Andrei noticed the darker side of the Colonel.

The Colonel had every reason to hate the planet. The Na'vi had attacked, and nearly killed him on his first day. He had watched his compatriots brutally slaughtered by nature. Over the years he had seen many men killed, maimed and wounded. Often the Na'vi expected to get away with it, and were all outraged when they did not. The scientists were intransigent and more concerned with how they were going to become Na'vi rather than figuring out how to move them. To make matters worse although the administrator was often sympathetic to the Military, his first priority was the mining operation. He also had to balance between Augustine and the Colonel. The result was both resented him on some level, and neither felt that he was doing good enough a job. Andrei sympathized with Selfridge's difficulties, and the attitude of the Colonel.

However the tipping point came not from the Na'vi, not from the Colonel, not through any rash act, but from Earth itself.

One day Selfridge was called before the Board of Directors. He had to go to the facility that communicated explicitly with the Board. He had sat there, waiting. These meetings were scheduled a year in advance. All the way stations on the route from Pandora to Earth had to be turned on, so that communication was almost instant, only ten seconds delay. "Incoming SATCOM from Washington D.C. RDA Corporate headquarters" said the same dispassionate female voice. A giant room, that had a pleasing dark green as the color of the wallpaper, polished wooden walls, and large windows with shut curtains. In it around a beautiful table sat 21 middle aged or old men and women, the men slightly outnumbering the women. All were dressed in the very best suits, yet unlike some, the suits did not shine. The suits were noticeable not because they shone, or were extravagant, but because they were of very high quality fabric. At the head of the table sat the CEO of the RDA, Patrick Bateman (author note: ha ha). "We need an update from you Parker, what is going on down there, have you moved the Na'vi."

Selfridge shifted uncomfortably in his chair and was conscious that he was probably wearing a pained look. "We're on it Director, but um uh, look even the Colonel wishes we had more men. Doctor Augustine is totally against starting a war, and I am not sure that it even needs to happen. We have made progress with the local tribe. We even had one of the SecOps guys establish contact with a native without needing an Avatar. As for the Avatars themselves, one of them, Jake Sully, has gotten farther than ever before in ingratiating himself with the local tribe. He is near to being completely accepted, we hope that once that is done in another six months or so, we will be able to persuade them to leave their home."

There was a collective groan from the room. The CFO announced "We keep hearing you defending that Augustine woman Parker and her tired programs. Do you know how much money it costs us to run that operation of her that gets nowhere?"

Selfridge was about to defend the Avatar program when the Director of Manufacturing spoke "We have the chance to make a lot of money if you and Colonel Quaritch would be more descisive. Think about it, everybody benefits, but you always procrastinate!"

"Um look" said Selfridge, "I never said the Avatar program was perfect, or that I have done the best job, but I defy anyone to do a better job than we have been doing here. I am reluctant to start a war unless I am absolutely sure of success. We need to put in measures to pacify the local tribe before anything else happens."

Bateman spoke again "How many troops does Colonel Quaritch estimate we need?"

Selfridge consulted the summary page of the report written by the Colonel "He says, conservatively, you would need to send a General, as he estimates we need another 4,000 troops here, before we can be absolutely certain of starting a war."

"4,000 TROOPS!" screamed the Director of Security, General Bushing, "That's ridiculous! Why can't the Colonel use what he had got?"

"Calm down" said Bateman softly and then turned back to Selfridge "Parker. You're out of time. I am here to tell you that now. When we hear from you in four months, we expect those people to have been moved, one way or another. So tell Colonel Quaritch that he will get no more troops. Tell Doctor Augustine that if she cannot be more than 50% certain of moving those people in the allotted time, that she has no more of it. That means you are to terminate the Avatar program if it is no longer convenient. If either you or the Colonel fail in your tasks, we will replace both of you, immediately. Bateman out." The screen blanked, and Selfridge was left there looking bitterly at the screen. He was also surprised at how brief the meeting had been, and how expensive it was to set one up. Evidently someone had decided, Bateman probably, before they even called him that either he had gotten the blue monkeys out of their tree, or if he had not, he had orders to move the operation ahead. Nobody could have foreseen the effect all this would have on Colonel Quaritch.

Andrei had been taking notes when the Administrator had marched in to the Colonel's office, and when Andrei saw Selfridge in a suit, it could only mean he had had a meeting with the board of directors, and it could only mean trouble given the way the man cast around glances nervously. "The Colonel is in his office sir" said Andrei, and he unlocked the outside lock allowing the administrator in without asking the Colonel permission. But then again Selfridge was who he was.

In his office Quartich was signing off the forms to rotate soldiers out from Field to Hell's Gate duty. Then the door was opened and Selfridge walked in looking perturbed. Uh oh. "What is it sir?" he asked.

The administrator sighed in the way he did when something disagreeable was about to happen, had happened, or was about to be said. "The Board says we're out of time. Your request for more troops has been flatly rejected. If Jake cannot get the Omaticaya to move in 4 months, we are to start a war immediately."

Quaritch was not shocked or too scared. He had known war and violence for a long time, and he was expecting something like this to happen. Truth be told he was quite happy to be rid of the waiting, he wanted to get this over with. The way he saw things it was the only way anything would ever get done to solving the situation. "Well we'll give them the four months then we'll go to war" he said shrugging his shoulders.

"Yeah but we need more time" said the administrator "I am not so sure we should be doing this. I mean what if we lose, what if it means we are at constant war with the natives, then how many troops will we need?"

"If that happens they will give us more troops. Just allow me to do my job sir, and I can guarantee you they will not bother us. They are not afraid because we have not shown them what we can do."

"As I recall Colonel that argument was used by Military men before America invaded Iraq, that did not turn out so well."

The remark stung Quartich, did this man not think he was competent? Did he intend to only know step down from supporting him at the last moment? Did he want a half-assed conflict in the hopes that everything would be okay? "I am not General Franks sir" he swallowed, realizing he was angry at Selfridge "I'll get it down, Me and the boys can do it sir. Don't worry its just one tribe, we outnumber them."

Selfridge had a look of doubt on his face "I don't know Colonel. Anyway I had better get back to my office. Tell me how much more stuff you need and I will see what I can do." With that he walked out without letting the colonel reply.

That by itself would not have been enough to bring out Quaritch's darker side. What followed did as it put him under a lot of pressure. Suddenly in his inbox he had an e-mail from General Bushing. Quaritch opened it, hoping it might actually be a message saying more troops were on the way. It did, but not in the way Quaritch expected. The message read

'_Colonel, _

_Over this long period you have done excellent service as Security Chief on Pandora. Casualties are lower than they were under Peng, equipment is less prone to be damaged by indigenous forces and all the employees there say they feel safe. For this you are to be congratulated. It has come to the attention of us and the Board however that in your persistent demands for troops, you are attempting in effect to displace Administrator Selfridge. There are accusations floating around here that your desire is to turn Pandora into an armed camp so you can take command for yourself and establish yourself as the ruler of humanity on another world. We dismiss the claim that you want to have your own independent dictatorship out of hand. We do not dismiss the armed camp theory. It seems that despite all your protestations about believing in decisive action, you have been singularly indecisive in your dealings with the indigenous. Not only have you hesitated before attacking the Na'vi in an all out war, but you have not even decided whether or not to retaliate fully or simply let outrages against the company go unpunished. Your adoption of a middling stance is the worst possible choice, serving only to exacerbate the situation. You must choose one or the other and soon. If you do not, you will be replaced, and there are plenty of people there whom we can choose from. Make the right decision Colonel, and get on with it! _

_John Bushing _

_General and commanding Officer of Resource Development Administration Security Operations Corps _

Quaritch sat back stunned. So Selfridge to his face said he trusted him. He reassured him all day long 'Don't worry Miles, I am on your side.' All the while though he saw Quaritch's efforts to protect the civilians and his own people as Quaritch maneuvering to displace him. No wonder he and Major Darwin got along so well, no wonder they were always talking. They were planning too get rid of him! He, who had done so much, unuseful! Quaritch snarled and banged his fist down on the metal table. He stared with contempt and rage at the screen. He would show them, he would solve these problems. So he had not been doing enough? He had been going too soft on the Natives? He would most certainly show all of them he meant business.

Of course what was going through his head at this moment was wrong. Selfridge did think that Quaritch was getting too old. Selfridge thought he should rotate home in about three or four years to a less stressful post for his retirement. He could be the one choosing people for Pandora. He saw Darwin as a potential replacement, three or four years from now. He trusted Colonel Quaritch and his competence. He saw that he was doing an excellent job at keeping people safe, and was thankful that he had him as Security chief. But Colonel Quaritch did not know any of this and assumed the worst, this was to have deadly consequences in a few days time. Jake was coming back on August 14th to deliver a report to him. He saw from the video logs that Jake was becoming more and more sympathetic to the Na'vi. Jake had passed the point where he was concerned on gathering intel, and more concerned about intergrating with the clan. So maybe he was making a good impression, maybe given time he could use this to make them move. However the problem was that Jake clearly wanted to be one of them. No, there was nothing for it, he had to be pulled from the mission.

Quaritch swore "Shit" and clicked on the reply button to the message he had received.

'_General_

_I am sorry that you think I have not done enough. I will try harder to resolve this situation within the next six months. In the meantime we have gathered large amounts of intel on the local Na'vi tribe and the terrain they inhabit. We also have identified key sacred spots to them and areas that would need to be pacified before the miners could safely move in. One recent arrival, Jake Sully, has proven very useful to me. He is an Avatar driver and also a paraplegic. I promised him that if he did this for me, over the head of Doctor Augustine that I would get him the approval for an operation to fix his spinal chord so he could walk again. I beg you sir to get the corporate approval for this. He has been courageous, and made huge leaps in improving relations with the locals and providing excellent intelligence on the enemy. I will make plans immediately for a conflict if the need should arise for us to become embroiled in one _

_Yours respectfully, Colonel Miles Quaritch _

_Head of Security Resource Development Administration Hell's Gate Facility. _

He clicked send and exhaled, not realizing he had been holding his breath. He then keyed in his on the comm unit to Andrei outside "Contact all the Senior Officers, we need to have a little get together to discuss our blue friends."

"Yes sir" responded Andrei. Quaritch keyed off.

The next morning, just as Jake was landing Quaritch saw a cold letter telling him that Jake had corporate approval for a spinal restoration operation. That was good news, it might bring Jake back. But by then it was too late.


End file.
